The next day began much like the previous day; it was still showery and
damp; and though Harry was out of doors I was prevented, by Aunt Milly’s
care, from joining him. In the afternoon we were to go out with her on a
round of inspection to see the neighbourhood, Miss Mortimer having
volunteered to give up the carriage to us for that purpose, though it
was the day on which she generally took her drive; and the rector and
some other near neighbours were to come to dinner in the evening. I was
once more alone with Miss Mortimer. We sat much as we had done on the
previous day, opposite each other, the moments passing over us in a
certain excited silence. She did not say anything to me; she did not
even look at me. She showed none of that voiceless anxiety to know who
had come in when the door opened, which struck me before. She was much
calmed down; the person she expected had come; the blow, whatever it
was, had been borne; and for the present moment there was an end of it.
She actually knitted her pattern correctly, and counted her stitches,
and referred to her book to see if she was correct, as she sat there
before me in her inhuman calm. Was she a creature of flesh and blood,
after all? or a witch, like those of the old stories, without any human
motives in her heart of stone?
I could not help thinking so as I sat beside her. Her head still
trembled slightly; but I suppose that was an habitual motion. She sat
there shut up in herself,--her misery and her relief, and the cold
dauntless spirit that must have risen from that smart encounter
yesterday, and gained strength by the very struggle--hidden from
everybody round her, as if they had been a world away. I gazed and
wondered, almost trembled, at that extraordinary death in life. She who
had all the tumult of passion and guilt in her memory; she who must have
entered into the fullest excitement of life, and got entangled in its
most dreadful perplexities; she who was no ascetic, nor even pretended
to that rival excitement of the devotee which might have replaced the
other; how could she have lived silent and obdurate through those
dreadful years? The very thought of them struck me aghast. After her
life of flattery, admiration, and universal homage; after her
experience, whatever that might be, of more personal passions, to drop
for a longer time than my whole life behind that screen into that chair!
As I sat opposite to her, my thoughts turned back to that other Miss
Mortimer, whom I had placed in imagination in my grandfather’s house.
Once more I thought I could see that large low room which I never had
seen, except in fancy, with the ancient beauty sitting silent by the
fire amid the ghosts of the past. Was this the true impersonation of
that dream of mine? Was this the Miss Mortimer, with her foreign count,
whom Mrs. Saltoun remembered? As this recurred to me I could scarcely
help a little start of quickened curiosity and eagerness. It seemed to
flicker before me as a possible interpretation of all this dark enigma,
could only the connecting link be found. As I was wandering deeper and
deeper into these thoughts--so deep as to forget the strange position I
stood in, and the possibility of being taken for a kind of domestic spy,
which had embarrassed me at first--I heard a little commotion outside.
The door, perhaps, was ajar, or it might be simply that my ears were
quickened by hearing a little cry from baby, and Lizzie’s voice
belligerent and full of determination. I got up hastily and went to the
door. I don’t think Miss Mortimer even lifted her eyes to notice my
movement. It was certainly Lizzie in some conflict with one of the
authorities of the house; and Lizzie, as the natural and primitive
method of asserting her own way, had unconsciously elevated her voice; a
proceeding which alarmed baby, and also, as it appeared, her antagonist.
I ran and threw the door open as I heard another cry from my little boy.
There, outside, was a curious scene. Lizzie, in her out-of-doors dress,
just returned from a walk in the garden with baby, with her face a
little flushed, and her plentiful hair somewhat blown about by the wind,
was resolutely pressing forward to enter the drawing-room, where, to be
sure, she had no business to come; while holding her back by her cloak,
and whispering threats and dissuasions, was a person whom I had scarcely
seen before, but whom I knew at once to be Carson, Miss Mortimer’s maid.
Lizzie was greatly excited; and what with managing the baby and
resisting this woman, while at the same time possessed with some mission
which she was evidently determined to perform, looked fatigued and
exhausted too.
“But I _will_,” cried Lizzie, with her eyes flashing. “I’m no heeding
whether it’s my place or no. I promised I would gi’e it into her ain
very hand; and do ye think I’m gaun back o’ my word? I tell ye I _will_
gie’t to the leddy mysel’. Eh, mem!” she exclaimed, breathlessly, with a
sudden change of her tone as she saw me, “I met Menico at the gate, and
I promised to gi’e it into the leddy’s ain hand.”
When I approached, Carson fell back; she shrank, I could fancy, from
meeting my eyes. Her hand dropped from Lizzie’s cloak; she was as much
afraid to be supposed to interfere as she was anxious to interfere in
reality.
“My missis’s nerves, ma’am,” said Carson, glibly, but in a half whisper,
“is not as strong as might be wished. If the young person, ma’am, would
give it to me, or----. You see the ladies at the Park they’re known for
charity, and beggars’ letters, or such like, they’re too excitin’ for my
missis’; they puts her all in a tremble--it’s on her nerves.”
“But, mem,” cried Lizzie, “I canna go back o’ my word.”
I stood between them, much perplexed and bewildered. The anxiety of Miss
Mortimer’s maid was evident; and Lizzie, from whose arms baby had
instantly struggled as soon as he saw me, was greatly excited. At this
moment she produced the letter which was in question. Carson made a
stealthy spring to seize it, but recollecting herself, drew back, and
looked up guilty, but deprecating in my face. I don’t know whether it
was a desire to clear up the mystery, or the cruel curiosity of an
observer of character that decided me. I dismissed Carson coldly, saying
I would ring if Miss Mortimer wanted her, and told Lizzie to follow me
into the room. Lizzie’s excitement sank into awe as she trod softly
through this great, faded, magnificent apartment. Before she reached the
screen which sheltered Miss Mortimer, she was almost speechless with
half superstitious reverence. I am sure she would willingly have given
her letter to Carson or anybody at that moment. The very fact that the
person she was about to confront was thus concealed from her overawed
her simple mind. When she actually emerged from behind the screen, and
came in full sight of Miss Mortimer, Lizzie’s healthful face was
perfectly colourless, and her frame trembling. The supreme awkwardness
of the attitude into which she fell, the spasmodic rudeness with which
she thrust out that hand that contained the letter, the fright and
consternation visible in every twist of her person, would have been
painfully ludicrous if there had been any time to observe it. Miss
Mortimer raised her eyes and stared at the strange figure before her.
Almost absurd as that figure was in its dismay and terror, her mind was
not sufficiently at ease to be simply surprised. Any strange apparition
had a right to appear before this woman in her intrenchments of dumb
resistance. As I stood by looking on, I could understand the feeling
which worked in her eyes. She was not surprised. No miracle could have
surprised her. She was rather asking in her heart, “Who is this new
assailant? Who will come next?”
“If ye please, it’s a letter,” said Lizzie, in a tremulous voice.
Miss Mortimer made no attempt to take the letter. She said, “Who are
you?” with a strange curiosity; as if, amid all the powers that had a
secret right to assail her in her conscious guiltiness, this was a new
hobgoblin whom she could not well connect with the others. If there were
any purgatory, I could fancy a poor soul there asking in the same tone
the name of the new imp who came to torment it.
This was more than Lizzie could bear. I don’t know what perplexed
terrors and superstitious ideas of evil influence brought back the blood
to her cheeks. She trembled all over under that eye, which had suggested
the idea of the Evil Eye to Lizzie, and to which she was determined
never to expose “our bairn.” She must have endured a kind of martyrdom
as she stood under its steady gaze. “Eh, me? I’m no onybody,” cried
Lizzie, shivering with excitement; “it’s just a letter. I said I would
gi’e it into the leddy’s own hand.”
Miss Mortimer turned upon me--on the child--on the very mirror on the
further wall, a look of silent defiance; she seemed to look round to
call upon the very apartment in which we sat to witness what she did.
Then she took the letter from Lizzie’s rigid fingers, and with scarcely
a motion, except of her hand, dropped it into the fire. After she had
done it, she turned again to us with another steady look, and even with
a smile; triumphant!--with a certain gleam of devilish satisfaction in
her success, as if she had baffled us all once more. But in that very
moment, while she still smiled, I could see her hold herself fast
between the arms of her chair, to keep down the nervous tremor which
seized her. That resisting, defying spirit was lodged in nothing
stronger than a human frame. Her head shook, steadied, trembled again,
with a force beyond all her power of control. With all that soul of
successful evil in her face, her head shook as if with the palsy of
extreme old age, and in spite of the most convulsive strenuous efforts
to keep it still. I was nearly as much awe-struck as Lizzie. I stole out
of sight of her as the girl did. Never was there such a picture! She
could conquer nature, truth, and every human feeling; but she could not
conquer those tremulous chords and threads of mortal flesh which refused
to be in the conspiracy. She sat there dumbly defying every scrutiny,
but with the smile growing fixed and ghastly on her face as she tried,
with her utmost desperate feeble strength, and failed, to defy and
overcome herself.
I asked Lizzie no questions as she came upstairs after me. I did not say
anything to her when I heard her sobbing out her agitation in her own
room. There was not a word said between us when she came refreshed by
that little ebullition, and by the necessary arrangement of her
wind-blown hair and dress, to take charge of little Harry. When I had
given the child up to her, I went downstairs again, quite silent and
eager. You may very well ask why. I cannot defend myself. I went down
with no better motive than to watch Miss Mortimer, and see if anything
more could be found out.
When I went into the room I saw nobody, but heard some voices and
movement behind the screen. I believe if Miss Mortimer had been speaking
in the ordinary human voice, I should not have heard her at that
distance; but I did hear that strange stifled whisper almost as well as
if it had been hissed into my ear.
“I must deny, deny, deny,” said the strange voice. “Don’t speak to me,
you know nothing about it. It is the only strength I have.”
“But, oh! dear, dear, such a pretty young gentleman!” said the other
speaker, in a tone of weeping but hopeless remonstrance.
“Let him prove his rights,” said Miss Mortimer.
I obeyed my instincts, and fled out of the room as I heard that she was
stirring behind the screen. And I had not been mistaken in the guess I
made. She came out a few minutes later, leaning on Carson’s arm, leaning
heavily, with her head trembling like that of a palsied person; but her
eyes full of that dreadful self-possession, knowledge and resistance. I
trembled, too, as I stood aside to let her pass. She did not say
anything, though she stared hard at me. The maid, though she did her
best to make up her usual face when she saw me there, was evidently
overpowered with anxiety and distress.
There was, then, one other individual who knew that secret--one creature
who loved that dreadful old woman, and in whom she trusted. I could not
help standing still to look after them as they went upstairs. Carson was
very little younger than her mistress. She had a naturally anxious look,
as well she might if she had been for years the depository of this
secret. I could not help picturing their life to myself as they went
upstairs: the innocent woman troubled and tearful, the guilty woman calm
and immovable, but for that trembling of her frame which even her
remorseless will was not strong enough to subdue. I could understand
better now how she kept alive, and could preserve that frightful
stillness of hers. Upstairs, in their own apartments, no doubt another
life went on; a life of recollections and schemes which no one knew of,
a life palpitating full of those past years of which Miss Mortimer gave
no sign. That was how she kept herself alive. I could not do anything
but stand still, watching them, as they went slowly up to that
retirement, where the mask could be laid off and the veil drawn. When
they were out of sight, I strayed into the great vacant drawing-room,
unable to withdraw my thoughts from this strange pair. “I must deny,
deny, deny!” That was the position she had taken. Could any one in
existence--could Luigi, a sensitive and high-minded young man as he
seemed to be--seek motherly love from such a woman as this? Motherly
love! it was dreadful even in thought to apply such words to anything
that could come from her. Shame only, shame to both. What motive could
he have to go on seeking her? for Nature had evidently no place in her
heart of stone.