That was a very miserable day. I cannot fancy a more uncomfortable
position for a stranger than that of being thrust into some distressing
family secret, almost immediately after his or her introduction to the
family in which it exists. This was just what had happened to me. I was
kept one way or the other between those two sisters all the day. Aunt
Milly kept continually appealing to me with her eyes, for conversation
would not keep up its fluctuating and feeble existence in presence of
that figure within the shelter of the screen; and my unlucky position of
confidante must have been so apparent that I should not have wondered at
any degree of dislike or displeasure which Miss Mortimer could have
shown me. She did not show any, however; I could discern no signs of
aversion to me. What am I saying? I could discern no signs of any human
feeling whatever in her appearance and behaviour that day. My impression
was that the sole thing with which her mind was occupied, was the effort
to keep her head steady, and overcome the nervous, tremulous motion
which agitated her frame. It was a relic, it might be an evidence, of
some unseen tempest. But I am firmly convinced that this was the subject
of all her thoughts. I watched, I must confess, with intense curiosity,
though as quietly as possible, that she might not see I was watching
her, every movement she made. But she did not notice me; she scarcely
noticed anybody; she was careless of what other people were thinking;
what she laboured after, all that miserable, lingering, rainy night was
to get the command of herself. She never ventured to unbend her attitude
in the slightest degree. She set her teeth together sometimes, and made
her face look ghastly; but she could not keep down that external symptom
of the trouble or tempest within. Her head kept moving with an incessant
tremble; her hands were too much agitated to pursue their work. She kept
the knitting-pins in her fingers, and held them rigidly together, as if
she were knitting, and sometimes made a few convulsive stitches, and
dropt them again, and bent in a tragical dismal confusion over that
trifling occupation of hers, which had grown so weird an adjunct of
herself to me. I watched her with a certain horror and pity which I
cannot describe. It was not her paltry wealth and lands she was
defending; it was her honour and her life. There she sat a solitary
desperate creature driven to bay, with dear Aunt Milly’s vague terrors
and anxieties revolving about her; but conscious in herself of a misery
and danger far transcending anything in her innocent sister’s thoughts.
Life and honour! but I believed there was no way in this world to defend
them but by unnatural falsehood, cruelty, and wrong, and that she did
not shrink from these means of upholding herself. Perhaps even a
virtuous struggle would have exercised less fascination, than the sight
of that desperate guilty secret resistance. I could not keep my eyes
from Miss Mortimer. There was something terrible to me in her convulsive
efforts after stillness, and in the nervous motion which continually
betrayed her, and which no exertions on her part could overcome.
But she sat out all the lengthy lingering hours of that evening, after
dinner, for they departed from their usual customs at that time, and
dined late out of compliment to Harry. We did try to talk a little, but
Aunt Milly’s thoughts were all astray upon one subject, and she was
continually breaking off in abrupt conclusions which irresistibly
suggested the engrossing matter which she dared not enter upon. Miss
Mortimer, meanwhile, attempted to read her Times; but whether it was
that the rustle of the paper betrayed the trembling of her hands, or
that her mind was unfit for reading anything, she soon laid the paper
by, and resumed her pretence of working. You may suppose that Harry and
I were not very much at our ease in this strange position of affairs.
Almost everything that was said among us suggested a something which
could not be said, yet which occupied everybody’s thoughts. Aunt Milly
sat flushed and troubled opposite to her sister; her distressed
perplexed look, the look of one totally at a loss and unable to offer
any explanation even to herself; her glances, sometimes directing me to
look at Miss Mortimer, sometimes appealing to me in vain for some
suggestion which could throw light upon the subject, were enough of
themselves to betray to any stranger the existence of some secret
unhappiness in the house. Harry, who was not so much in Aunt Milly’s
confidence as I was, kept appealing to me on the other side. What was it
all about? I never wished so fervently for the conclusion of a day as I
did for that; and yet there must be some extraordinary fascination in
watching one’s fellow-creatures. I should not like to get fairly into
that dreadful inhuman occupation which people called studying character.
But I was so curious about Miss Mortimer that I could almost have liked
to follow her to her own room, and watch, when she was no longer on her
guard against other people, how she would look and what she would do.
Would she faint, or cry out, or dash herself against the floor? or was
she so accustomed to that dreadful secresy that she would not betray
herself even to herself? She must have lived that dreadful hidden life,
and locked up all she knew in her own breast for a lifetime; for a
longer lifetime than mine.
“I wonder,” said Henry, when we were alone that evening, “what sort of a
person this Miss Mortimer is. Something’s wrong clearly. I suspect there
must be something in the old lady’s life which will not bear the light
of day.”
“What makes you think so?” said I.
“The t’other old lady and you play into each other’s hands,” cried
Harry; “you know more about it than you choose to tell. But of course
you are right enough if it is somebody else’s secret; only recollect,
Milly, I am very glad you should be an heiress; I am extremely glad you
will have a house to receive you while I am away, and that come what
may, _that_ little beggar is provided for; but look here, if there’s
another relation nearer than you, legitimate or illegitimate, I won’t
stand by and see him wronged.”
“Harry, tell me what you mean,” cried I.
Harry looked at me a little indignantly; he thought I knew more than he
did, and was trifling with him. “Milly, who is that fellow Luigi?” he
said at last.
“I make dreadful guesses,” said I, “but I cannot tell. Aunt Milly knows
nothing about him. The only idea she can form is that he may be her
father’s son.”
Harry gave a long, half amazed, incredulous whistle, and turned away. He
could scarcely believe me. Then I told him all I had heard, and
something of what I had guessed. We did not converse plainly about this
guess, which he had evidently jumped at as well as myself. A secret held
with such dreadful tenacity was not a thing to be lightly discussed; but
we both felt the same on the subject, only Harry’s mind took a more
charitable view of it than I did. They say _we_ are always harder on
guilty women than men are; perhaps it is natural. I felt an abhorrence
rise within me which I could neither overcome nor disguise at the idea
of a woman, and especially a woman in such a position as Miss Mortimer,
having lived a pretended life of honour and innocence all these years,
with that guilt in her mind which nobody knew but she; and now of her
sacrificing and disowning nature to keep up that dreadful sham. I can
understand people meeting death rather than disgrace; that is, I mean I
could understand how one would rather hear that those whom one loves
should die than disgrace themselves; but I don’t understand an insane
struggle against the disgrace which one has deserved. That is not a
noble struggle, so far as I can see; the only way of existing through
such dreadful circumstances would be by enduring it; and all the same
whether it was a woman or a man. I do think it is a shame to speak as
some people speak on this subject, as if the _disgrace_ were all; as if
all the harm was not done when the wrong was done, whether disgrace came
or no!
“I’ll tell you what, Milly,” said Harry, “I must say I think it’s very
hard the poor old lady should lose her good name for something that
happened an age ago. No doubt, by what we saw to-day, she must have set
her poor old heart upon resisting and denying it, as foolish people
always try to do. Now, you know, that’s evidently of no use. Of course a
mere statement of any such claim having been made, is enough to finish
Miss Mortimer, with all the gossips of the county, whether it was proved
or not. Now I shan’t be here for long, and as they seem disposed to be
so very kind to you----”
“Don’t, Harry!”
“But I must,” said he. “It will be no end of consolation to me to think
of you in these pretty rooms which Miss Milly has already prepared for
you. If I can do them a good turn before I go, I will, you may depend
upon it. As soon as we return to Chester I’ll see Luigi; and if it can
be got out of him what he wants, I shall certainly make an effort to
have him satisfied, and Miss Mortimer left unmolested. It would not do
if sins of thirty years standing were to be brought against people in
this way. Why, anybody might be thrown into sudden shame on such a
principle; and you women, you know, are so vindictive and all that----”
“Oh, yes! I know,” said I, “and will always be vindictive all the same.
Imagine this woman standing side by side with Aunt Milly, and considered
as spotless as she; imagine such a long cruel abominable sin, and no
retribution overtaking it! Oh, you may be pitiful if you like, but it
disgusts me.”
Harry laughed. “I should be surprised if it did not disgust you, Milly
darling,” he said, “but poetic justice is exploded now-a-days. I don’t
suppose Luigi can be very anxious for her personal affection,
considering how she seems to have behaved; and, indeed, to be sure he
would be fully more disgraced than she. How many days are we to be here?
I shall see him whenever we return to Chester.”
“Three days longer,” said I, with a sigh. “Somehow this little visit to
the Park had come to look like a little barrier between me and what was
coming. Presently we should go back to Chester, and then----”
Harry understood my sigh. He repeated the very words I was saying in my
mind. “And then----” said Harry, “and then, darling, to see which of us
two is bravest! But it will come hardest upon you, my poor little wife.”
“Harry,” cried I, “don’t speak!” and I went away, and would have no more
of such talk. It was enough that it was coming; it would be enough when
it came.
Perhaps the last few words of this conversation were not the best
preparation possible for sleep. I know I awoke a great many times during
that long dark night, and once in its deepest darkness and stillness I
fancied I heard a groan faintly sounding through the wall. Miss
Mortimer’s rooms were near ours. This sound set all my imagination busy
again. It was she who groaned under that veil of night. She, so
dreadfully on her guard all day long, who relieved her miserable heart
thus when nobody watched her. It was impossible not to feel excited in
the neighbourhood of such mysterious secrecy. The sound of that groan
moved me to pity;--she had not escaped without retribution. Was not that
dread of the consequences under which she was suffering, worse than the
very hardest shape the consequences were likely to assume, if they
themselves ever overtook the sinner?