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).