Oh, shame! oh, guilt! oh, horror! oh, remorse
Oh, punishment! Had Satan never fallen,
Hell had been made for me. Oh, Leonora!
Leonora! Leonora!
Young.
Helen Grahame, borne helpless to her bed-chamber, remained for many
hours without exhibiting any sign of returning consciousness.
An experienced physician had been summoned, and at length the fit was so
far mastered by the application of remedies and restoratives, that the
semblance of death no longer remained, and she was roused into motion,
though not to consciousness.
She was delirious, at first: and sitting upright in the bed, caught the
terrified, weeping Evangeline by the wrist, and pointed into vacancy.
“See, see,” she shrieked; “he stands tottering on the vessel’s side.
Hold him back for mercy sake, hold him back, or he will be lost! Oh,
Hugh, but one moment--pause--for very charity pause! I come to you--one
moment, Hugh--I will hang on your breast, I will cling to you, I will
go through the world with you--stay--one instant! Save him! Save him!
Hugh!--Hugh!--see, he curses me--his eyes glare angrily on me, he tosses
his hands wildly in the air--he leaps--ha!”
A piercing shriek burst from her lips, and rang through the house.
Evangeline threw her arms round her sister, and by force prevented her
from springing from the bed on to the floor.
“Helen, darling,” she exclaimed, sobbing, as she felt the quivering,
trembling frame of her sister shake in every limb, as though she was
struck with an ague--“Helen, look upon me--I am Eva, sister Eva; you see
only a horrible vision--a dreadful dream; you are at home in your own
room--oh, Helen, Helen darling, speak to me one word, say that you know
me, one word, Helen dearest.”
“One word, Helen dearest! the words mock me,” exclaimed Helen, in a low
subdued tone, her large dark eyes wandering slowly round the room. “One
word, Helen, dearest!--and I would not utter it. My cold selfishness has
killed him. The remorseless sea has closed over him, the moaning wind
chants his dirge, the slimy seaweed entangles his locks, he lays upon
the cold, cold sand in the green depths, his white wan face turned,
despairing, to the harsh world which had no compassion for him. He is
gone, he is for ever gone!--I--I have slain him!”
A fearful passion of hysteric weeping followed these words. Her whole
frame was convulsed. It took the united aid of the physician, Chayter,
and Evangeline to hold her down, in order to prevent her committing some
wild act of delirious extravagance.
The paroxysm passed away but it left her utterly prostrate. The
physician declaring her out of immediate danger, retired, leaving
Evangeline and Chayter to watch by her as she lay, wan and
motionless--the faint heaving of her bosom only telling that she was not
dead.
Helen’s intercourse with Hugh was known only to herself and to him--she
had no _confidante_--and it was well that Mrs. Grahame was not present
during the ravings uttered by her daughter. A secret is never so well
kept as when it is never entrusted. Helen believed this, and confided to
no one the love passage in her young life, Evangeline, in her innocence,
believed that the mere relation of the incident with which Hugh
Riversdale was connected, coming upon Helen at a moment when she was not
quite in health, had so shocked her as to produce this grave result; but
such would not have been the interpretation by Mrs. Grahame.
At present that lady decided in her own mind that Helen had been
attacked by this fit, wholly irrespective of the paragraph in the paper;
but she would at once have surmised the truth, if she had seen how her
daughter wept the loss of the person they “could not notice now.”
The report of the physician was that she had suffered a severe attack of
hysteria--that she was much prostrated, with a tendency to be delirious;
but that though she might be compelled to keep her chamber for some
time, there was no real danger. “It was necessary that she should be
well nursed,” he said, and as he perceived that in that mansion, where
pride reigned supreme, she was not likely to obtain the careful and
constant attention which she so much needed, he recommended a person to
be sent for from the institution for trained nurses.
Mrs. Grahame approved of the suggestion, and, within a couple of hours,
one, a tall matronly female, was duly installed empress of Helen’s sick
chamber.
She had a struggle, at first, to wrest the empire from Evangeline, but
she was so forcible in her reasoning, and so kind and gentle in her
manner, that Eva yielded up the sway, on the understanding that she
should spend the greater portion of her time at her sister’s bedside.
And now the house assumed an aspect of quiet. The Duke of St. Allborne
had just begun to find favourable qualities in Margaret, not visible to
the eyes of others, but bright in his, for her homage to him had been so
direct that he could but notice and approve it. Direct flattery rarely
disgusts the weak-minded; it charmed the Duke, and he purred as he
received it. He would have become more marked in his attentions to the
artful girl, but Helen’s sudden illness brought his and Lester Vane’s
visit to an abrupt close.
They quitted, with expressions of complimentary condolence, and
promised, at a future time, to repeat their visit. Both intended to keep
their word.
Lester Vane had no thought of yielding up his designs on Helen. He
neither forgot nor forgave. He had correctly read her intention to make
a prize of his heart, and then to toss it away as a worthless gain. He
overlooked the provocation he gave her for entertaining such a scheme,
unjustifiable as it was, and he resolved to punish her. There was a
blow to wipe out, and he thought he knew how to exact ample vengeance in
atonement of it.
So he determined to return again to the house when Helen had recovered.
The anticipated visit of old Wilton and his daughter Flora to the house
of Mr. Grahame was not paid, the reason assigned was, that Wilton, with
his daughter, had gone into the country--rather unexpectedly--to take
possession of the estate of which he had been so long deprived.
The pressing claims upon Mr. Grahame were all satisfied, a large sum had
been placed to his credit at his bankers, and proceedings were going on
to carry into effect Nathan Gomer’s scheme.
Mr. Grahame was, upon the whole, though rather mystified and vexed by a
lurking uneasiness, glad that the deed, bearing the signature of
Eustace Wilton, which the latter had never written, had so strangely
disappeared; and he was also rather pleased, though perplexed, to find
Mr. Chewkle had never returned to him, after his departure with the
professed object of enlisting the services of two arrant scoundrels in
the atrocious business of false swearing. He, therefore, set out on a
business visit to an estate he possessed in Scotland, with a much easier
frame of mind, and a more decided disposition to enact the part of
a haughty feudal lord, than he had done on the visits immediately
preceding the present.
Mrs. Grahame and Margaret were incessantly engaged in fulfilling with
propriety what they deemed the duties of the station they held. They
were in their carriage one-half the day, and one-half the night at the
opera, at _soirées_, and routs.
Evangeline spent all the time allotted her by her mamma, and by the
nurse, Mrs. Truebody, in Helen’s room; but in the sick chamber, or away
from it, her soft footsteps and her sweet low voice were rarely heard.
So the mansion was for the most part silent as an untenanted house of
prayer. Helen was slowly recovering. She was still very ill. Since her
raving in her delirium, she had never spoken a word.
To the fond and affectionate questions of Evangeline, she replied by a
faint, loving smile, or a gentle pressure of the hand, but not a word.
To the physician or to the nurse, she either nodded slightly or shook
her head, but not a sound escaped her lips.
At length the physician terminated his visits, recommending that Helen
should rise for an hour or two, extending the time each day, until she
had strength enough to resume her ordinary routine of life.
Mrs. Truebody had been most attentive to her patient; her medical
knowledge was excellent, and frequently most usefully applied; her
kindness, her patient, unweary watching, most exemplary; it had won, as
it could not fail to do, the gratitude of Helen, occasionally displayed
by a beaming look, not at all difficult of interpretation.
One night, towards midnight, when Eva had, after embracing and kissing
her sister tenderly, retired to her own room to pray, as usual, for the
speedy restoration of Helen to health, Mrs. Truebody seated herself by
the bedside, and took Helen’s wasted hand in her own, and held it there.
“Miss Grahame,” she said, in a low tone, “you are progressing, though
slowly, to recovery; but there is one impediment to your more rapid
return to health, which, I confess, I am sadly afraid cannot be easily
removed.”
She paused.
Helen turned her dark eyes upon her, with an inquiring look, but did not
speak.
“You have a weight preying on your mind, which alone causes the physical
prostration under which you suffer,” continued Mrs. Truebody. “It
will continue to keep you here unless prompt arrangements are made to
alleviate it by some decided step on your part.”
Helen remained silent. Still, Mrs. Truebody went on--
“Have you a friend, Miss Grahame?” she asked; adding--“I do not mean
a mere acquaintance, nor yet a relative, but a friend, in whom you can
place the fullest confidence, and who would spare no exertion and faint
not at trial and trouble to serve you. Speak, my child, for in truth it
is a momentous question I ask of you.”
Helen faintly shook her head, and, in a feeble voice, replied--
“No, I have not--not one--now.”
The tears clustered in her eyes.
Mrs. Truebody gazed upon her sadly.
“You have need of one--sore need of one,” she said, gravely; “for you
have some painful secret in your heart.”
There was a silence as of the grave.
Helen’s eyes looked into the dark shadow in her room, as though there
she saw a phantom. She spoke not.
“Have you never confided, by word or hint, to anyone that grief which
now oppresses you?” asked Mrs. Truebody, in a curiously solemn tone.
A flush spread itself over the hitherto pale features of Helen, and then
it passed away, leaving her whiter than ever.
“Never,” she murmured, in a low voice.
“And where is he who has brought you to this condition?” asked Mrs.
Truebody, in a tone betraying indignation.
“Oh, do not speak, do not think harshly of him!” exclaimed Helen, with
a quivering lip. “His anguish, his misery, and his despair, were greater
than my own!”
Then, in hoarse accents, she briefly spoke of the circumstances which
called Hugh away, of his letter to her, of her mental struggles, her
hesitation, and vacillation, until too late even to write to him, and
then of the incident published in the newspaper.
Mrs. Truebody listened in silence, with her eyes intently fixed upon
Helen’s features, perusing them earnestly as though to ascertain whether
there was not something more which Helen studiously concealed, but she
did not seem to find what she sought.
Presently, she said abruptly--
“Were you married?”
A change instantly passed over the features of Helen--an expression
impossible to describe: it told that a throng of unutterable thoughts
were passing through her brain.
“Why do you ask me such a question?” she said, in an almost inarticulate
voice.
Mrs. Truebody took a firmer hold of her hand.
“Look in my eyes, my child,” she said solemnly; “answer me truly--are you
ignorant of your actual condition?”
“My--my condition!” feebly echoed Helen.
“Know you not, my poor girl,” exclaimed Mrs. Truebody, in a deep and
earnest tone, “that ere a few short months have passed over your head,
you will become a mother?”
Helen’s face became instantly of a ghastly whiteness. She turned an
affrighted glare upon Mrs. Truebody. Her lips moved as though she would
speak but could not. A film spread itself over her eyes, a moment before
unnaturally bright, and she swooned away.
Mrs. Truebody let fall her hand, and hastened to apply restoratives.
Her tears fell fast upon the pallid countenance over which she bent like
a tender mother.
“Poor child” she murmured. “Poor deluded child! Riches have not saved her
from sin, nor spared her sorrow. Oh, woman! woman! you, who claim this
frail creature as your child, what have you not to answer for!”
Once again Helen became conscious, and now she was face to face with
her true position--now she felt more terribly the upbraidings of
self-reproach, for not having complied with Hugh’s passionate appeal to
her. But the opportunity was passed. He was gone--perhaps to heaven. She
was here alone--alone with her sin.
Something to Mrs. Truebody’s surprise, she did not exhibit the violent
emotions she had expected her to give way to, on being restored to a
full sense of her position. She wept, it is true--her eyes rained tears,
and her sobs--low, wailing sobs--were very painful to hear--but she was
almost motionless; it was as though she cowered beneath the bed-clothes
to hide herself for very shame.
After a time she whispered--
“This is a dreadful secret--a most dreadful secret. I have had, since I
have laid here, a terrifying sense of the truth, but I drove it away--I
would not think of it, I would not believe it--but oh! is it true--is it
true?”
“It _is_ true,” repeated Mrs. Truebody, emphatically.
Helen clasped her hands, and said to her, imploringly--
“Leave me to deal with this fearful discovery alone, but oh! Mrs.
Truebody, if you have a spark of human charity, breathe not to mortal
the calamity with which Heaven has afflicted me in meting out to me my
deserts. Oh! think of my father’s and of my mother’s pride in the honour
of our house. To know of my fall would crush them--that foul blot on
their escutcheon would slay them. Oh! Mrs. Truebody, let me not add
murder to my dread fault, I implore you, I pray of you--upon my knees
with bitter, bitter tears I will pray of you, as you alone discovered my
secret, so retain it in your own bosom.”
“Be comforted in this, my poor child,” she replied: “I will not add a
pang to the anguish which I am sure you must now so keenly suffer, but
what I must know, and what I will know, is, the course you are going to
adopt.”
“You shall know as soon as I have the power to decide. At present my
brain is racked with agony, my temples burn and throb: I cannot collect
my thoughts into anything like coherency. Let me but have quiet--quiet,
Mrs. Truebody, and I shall be able then to shape out the path my guilt
and shame may compel me to take, without injuring or degrading those who
are so jealous of their virtue and their fame.”
“Ah!” thought Mrs. Truebody, “if they had mixed up with this stern
purity of character a little common humanity. If the haughty mother of
this frail sinful girl had been but as proud of being a good, watchful,
loving parent as she has been of her long line of ancestry, this
dreadful thing surely had not happened.” She turned to Helen, and said--
“You shall have quiet and rest--so that you may gather strength to
reflect upon the consequences of your terrible error, and pray to God
for pardon.”
“I will try to do all you counsel,” responded Helen, excitedly, though
speaking in the same hissing undertone; “but I must be left for a time
to myself--be alone, quite alone! Above all, let not Eva come to me!”
“Miss Grahame?”
“No!--no!--no! Not Eva!--not Eva! I cannot now dare to look in her
sinless face. I cannot bear the soft gaze of her innocent eyes, nor hear
those affectionate words emanating from her pure heart, without acutely
feeling each look, each tone of her dear voice, as a terrible reproach.
I have so looked down upon her simplicity, taunted her guilelessness,
scoffed at her singleness of heart, that the very sight of her seems to
humble me to the dust.”
“She will be so very grieved, to be forbidden the usual seat by your
bedside,” said Mrs. Truebody, deprecatingly.
“I know it--I feel it. I can see her turning sorrowfully away when you
deny her access to me, but she is now to me an angel of such spotless
purity, and I so foul, so black, so begrimed with wickedness, that were
she to lay her tender hand upon me, and with those immaculate lips press
my hot forehead, I should shrink from her, fearing to pollute her by the
contact.”
“Whatever you may inwardly feel--and I would not have you repulse any
such sense of your grievous fault--it will be necessary to obtain a
control over your feelings, and to appear much as usual,” said Mrs.
Truebody; “and I would suggest to you that by refusing to see your
sister Eva--dear, sweet creature that she is--you will give rise to
questions which it will be difficult to answer.”
“I will be guided by you, but pray let me be alone for the next day or
two,” urged Helen. “You will tell her that, unless I am for a short time
left entirely to myself, my recovery will be greatly retarded. She
will not, after that, press her own kind desires in opposition to my
recovery. And, now, if my beating brain will let me, I will try to
sleep, and strive to gather strength; for, oh! I have a dreadful task to
encounter--a desperate part to play. Good night, Mrs. Truebody; remember
your promise!--not a word to mortal--not a word--not a word! as you hope
hereafter for mercy from the Almighty!”
Mrs. Truebody slept in a small antechamber. Her room door was in Helen’s
apartment, and this she always left open all night. Having performed a
few necessary duties, and bade Helen farewell for the night, she retired
to her bed.
At length Helen was quite alone. The slight hum of the gently-moving
trees in the garden was broken only by the monotonous ticking of the
time-piece over the fireplace. An hour passed, and not a sound broke the
intense stillness which reigned throughout the house.
Suddenly Helen sat straight up in the bed. She stretched her arms out,
and murmured, in accents of the keenest misery--
“Oh! Hugh, Hugh--pardon and pity me! If you are dead, come to me in the
spirit; let your sad eyes once more turn on mine. I will not tremble,
nor faint, nor be appalled. Come to me--bear me with you; for oh! it is
dreadful to be here alone--alone, Hugh! Oh! you know not how lone I
am--so utterly lonely. No, no; oh, mercy Heaven! not _alone_--not
alone--no more alone!”
With a low wail, more like a cry of horror than, the sob of anguish, she
sank shivering down, and buried her head beneath the bed-clothes. Once
more she raised herself, and parted her long black hair from her tearful
eyes, dim with long weeping.
“Are you dead, Hugh?” she moaned; “it is happiness for you, if you are.
I may not die--I dare not die; I must live--live for, for--oh--I shall
go frantic! Live? Live where?--_where?_--where?”
She clasped her hands in despair.
“Here I cannot stay. Here? No; I must out into the world. Oh! where, to
hide my misery and my shame from all--the pitying and the pitiless? Oh,
Hugh! that I had fled to you. If I had but listened to the pleadings of
my heart, I had not fallen before the whisperings of my pride!”
And thus the night through did she start up and murmur in moaning
accents, or hide herself beneath the bed-covering, sobbing and wailing
in the very wildest grief.
The pale gray dawn began to show through the transparent blind, when
sleep stole over the exhausted girl, and it was mid-day ere she awoke,
strengthened, though not refreshed, by her long slumber--awoke, as Mrs.
Truebody had told her, to be face to face with her miserable situation.
She did not shrink from it. The nurse kept her promise, and suffered no
one to enter the chamber but herself, and Helen had all the quiet she
could hope for.
She lay motionless the remainder of the day. The nurse could, however,
see that her mind was working with ceaseless activity. Occasionally
she would perceive her dark eyes, shining with an unnatural brilliancy,
turned upon herself, and she knew that Helen was taking into her
calculations her aid or her silence.
She did not try to induce her to speak, especially as she saw that she
had a disinclination to do so. She believed it to be better for her
to think. A steady reflection upon the failings of our nature tends to
promote an endeavour to remedy them. Under such an impression, she did
not care to make Helen talk.
Helen slept all that night, but the following day was a counterpart of
the last. Neither Mrs. Grahame nor Margaret made any attempt to see
her, when they were requested not to visit her for a day or so, but
Evangeline could scarcely be moved from the chamber door.
She stole there upon tiptoe, and stood without for hours, listening
intently. If she could have only heard Helen speak, it would have made
her heart light and glad.
That night, at the hour when the household were retiring to repose,
Evangeline escaped the vigilance of Mrs. Truebody, and crept to the
bedside.
Helen lay there in deep thought, as for hours she had been--living over
her past life, and vainly trying to shape out of the obscure future the
lot she would have to endure.
Her restless eyes suddenly fell upon the upturned, loving face of
her sister--that face so full of tenderness, and yet charged with
an expression deprecating her anger for having broken through the
arrangement which compelled her absence.
At first Helen shrank, as if horrified, from her, but Evangeline leaned
over, and caught her in her arms.
“Do not be angry with me, Helen, dearest,” she said, entreatingly; “but
indeed, indeed, I could not sleep without speaking just one little word
to you, and kissing you. I sobbed all last night; it was foolish, I
know; but I could not bear to go to bed without having even seen you
during the day.”
“Do--do not touch me, Eva,” said Helen, gasping and struggling to free
herself from her sister’s affectionate embrace.
Eva burst into tears.
“Do not be cross with me, Helen, darling, for I love you fondly and
dearly!” she exclaimed. “If I too much intrude my love upon you, forgive
me, for I cannot help it. Say to me only, ‘Good night, Eva,’ and kiss
me, and I will leave you--oh, so happy, Helen.”
Helen could not bear this tenderness of her sister’s, and not respond
to it; she strained her passionately to her bosom, and sobbed violently
upon her neck. She then wiped her scalding tears from her burning eyes,
and kissed Eva fervidly upon the forehead.
“Eva,” she whispered in her ear, “I love you with my whole soul. I have
wronged you. I have treated you with unkindness----”
“No, darling--no, never.”
“With unfeeling scorn, Eva--cruel, selfish pride. I am punished,
Eva--you cannot dream how fearfully; but let that pass--mine the crime,
mine the atonement. Know this, however--that my eyes are opened, and
my error stands before me, a monument of glowing brass. You do not
understand this, sweet Eva; but you will comprehend that, from the
inmost depths of my heart, I love and honour you.”
“Helen!”
“That in--in the--the time to come, I shall never forget your more
than sisterly affection, your dear love for me, and I shall pray for
blessings to be showered upon you, Eva--pray for you--as I hope you
will--will pray for me.”
The last words were almost inaudible. She kissed the astonished Eva
again and again with passionate fervour, and then she bade her not to
say a word, but to leave her and come again at the same hour on the
following night.
“But you will say, ‘Good night and good bye, dearest,’ to me, will you
not, Helen?” asked Eva, softly and fondly.
Helen felt as if she should be suffocated by a rising hysterical sob,
but she contrived to force out the words--
“Good night and good bye, dearest Eva,” and then she fell back, almost
lifeless, on the bed.
Eva bent over her, imprinted one last kiss upon her burning lips, and
then ran out of the room with a heart throbbing with joy, and kneeling
down at her own bedside, she prayed with sincerity and fervour for the
recovery and for the happiness of her sister Helen.
In the early morning, while Helen seemed yet sleeping, Mrs. Truebody
went upon an errand, which her patient had begged her to execute
herself; it took her to no great distance from the house, and when she
returned she went into the kitchen and made breakfast for Helen herself,
according to her usual custom, and then she carried it up to her
bedside.
But Helen was not there!
Nor in the room, nor in the house, ransacked, in wild terror, by Mrs.
Truebody.
Upon the toilet table, was subsequently found a note, addressed to Mrs.
Grahame. Within, ran the following words--
“_Search not for me. I have departed of my own free will. Rest satisfied
in this--that the life bestowed by my Creator will not beshortened by
a despairing hand. One word of solemn warning. Inquire not. Be content
that there is a mystery. Do not seek to draw a veil from that which,
hidden, cannot wound you, but if revealed would destroy you. Forget me!_”
“_Helen_.”
So she was gone.
Mrs. Grahame, after perusing this strange and, to her mind,
incomprehensible epistle, concluded to take no step in the matter until
she had consulted with Mr. Gra-hame upon the subject. Such undignified
behaviour on the part of her eldest daughter was unpardonable.
Margaret thought that her mother had adopted quite the proper course to
pursue; Malcolm was out of town for a few days; and Evangeline, upon her
knees, implored Mrs. Truebody to accompany her over London in search of
her absent sister.
Mrs. Truebody, in deep tribulation, promised everything, and did
nothing.
Yes, she did one thing.
She kept Helen’s dreadful secret!