Lilian recovered, but the strange thing was this: all memory of the
weeks that had elapsed since her return from visiting her aunt was
completely obliterated; she seemed in profound ignorance of the charge
on which I had been confined,--perfectly ignorant even of the existence
of Margrave. She had, indeed, a very vague reminiscence of her
conversation with me in the garden,--the first conversation which had
ever been embittered by a disagreement,--but that disagreement itself
she did not recollect. Her belief was that she had been ill and
light-headed since that evening. From that evening to the hour of her
waking, conscious and revived, all was a blank. Her love for me was
restored, as if its thread had never been broken. Some such instances of
oblivion after bodily illness or mental shock are familiar enough to the
practice of all medical men;(1) and I was therefore enabled to appease
the anxiety and wonder of Mrs. Ashleigh, by quoting various examples of
loss, or suspension, of memory. We agreed that it would be necessary
to break to Lilian, though very cautiously, the story of Sir Philip
Derval’s murder, and the charge to which I had been subjected. She could
not fail to hear of those events from others. How shall I express her
womanly terror, her loving, sympathizing pity, on hearing the tale,
which I softened as well as I could?
“And to think that I knew nothing of this!” she cried, clasping my hand;
“to think that you were in peril, and that I was not by your side!”
Her mother spoke of Margrave, as a visitor,--an agreeable, lively
stranger; Lilian could not even recollect his name, but she seemed
shocked to think that any visitor had been admitted while I was in
circumstances so awful! Need I say that our engagement was renewed?
Renewed! To her knowledge and to her heart it had never been interrupted
for a moment. But oh! the malignity of the wrong world! Oh, that strange
lust of mangling reputations, which seizes on hearts the least wantonly
cruel! Let two idle tongues utter a tale against some third person,
who never offended the babblers, and how the tale spreads, like fire,
lighted none know how, in the herbage of an American prairie! Who shall
put it out?
What right have we to pry into the secrets of other men’s hearths? True
or false, the tale that is gabbled to us, what concern of ours can it
be? I speak not of cases to which the law has been summoned, which
law has sifted, on which law has pronounced. But how, when the law is
silent, can we assume its verdicts? How be all judges where there has
been no witness-box, no cross-examination, no jury? Yet, every day we
put on our ermine, and make ourselves judges,--judges sure to condemn,
and on what evidence? That which no court of law will receive. Somebody
has said something to somebody, which somebody repeats to everybody!
The gossip of L---- had set in full current against Lilian’s fair
name. No ladies had called or sent to congratulate Mrs. Ashleigh on her
return, or to inquire after Lilian herself during her struggle between
life and death.
How I missed the Queen of the Hill at this critical moment! How I longed
for aid to crush the slander, with which I knew not how to grapple,--aid
in her knowledge of the world and her ascendancy over its judgments! I
had heard from her once since her absence, briefly but kindly expressing
her amazement at the ineffable stupidity which could for a moment have
subjected me to a suspicion of Sir Philip Derval’s strange murder, and
congratulating me heartily on my complete vindication from so monstrous
a charge. To this letter no address was given. I supposed the omission
to be accidental, but on calling at her house to inquire her direction,
I found that the servants did not know it.
What, then, was my joy when just at this juncture I received a note from
Mrs. Poyntz, stating that she had returned the night before, and would
be glad to see me.
I hastened to her house. “Ah,” thought I, as I sprang lightly up the
ascent to the Hill, “how the tattlers will be silenced by a word from
her imperial lips!” And only just as I approached her door did it strike
me how difficult--nay, how impossible--to explain to her--the hard
positive woman, her who had, less ostensibly but more ruthlessly than
myself, destroyed Dr. Lloyd for his belief in the comparatively rational
pretensions of clairvoyance--all the mystical excuses for Lilian’s
flight from her home? How speak to her--or, indeed, to any one--about
an occult fascination and a magic wand? No matter: surely it would be
enough to say that at the time Lilian had been light-headed, under the
influence of the fever which had afterwards nearly proved fatal, The
early friend of Anne Ashleigh would not be a severe critic on any tale
that might right the good name of Anne Ashleigh’s daughter. So assured,
with a light heart and a cheerful face, I followed the servant into the
great lady’s pleasant but decorous presence-chamber.
(1) Such instances of suspense of memory are recorded in most
physiological and in some metaphysical works. Dr. Abercrombie notices
some, more or less similar to that related in the text: “A young lady
who was present at a catastrophe in Scotland, in which many people lost
their lives by the fall of the gallery of a church, escaped without any
injury, but with the complete loss of the recollection of any of the
circumstances; and this extended not only to the accident, but to
everything that had occurred to her for a certain time before going to
church. A lady whom I attended some years ago in a protracted illness,
in which her memory became much impaired, lost the recollection of a
period of about ten or twelve years, but spoke with perfect consistency
of things as they stood before that time.” Dr. Aberercmbie adds: “As far
as I have been able to trace it, the principle in such cases seems to
be, that when the memory is impaired to a certain degree, the loss of
it extends backward to some event or some period by which a particularly
deep impression had been made upon the mind.”--ABERCROMBIE: On the
Intellectual Powers, pp. 118, 119 (15th edition).