In the moment of that movement, half-dragged by the fast and firm hold
upon her, half pushing her captor, and notwithstanding the horror and
panic of her arrest and discovery, Letitia had time to form in her mind
the explanations she would give to John, if it were John: or if it
should happen to be Letty (which was impossible--but all things are
possible to guilt and mortal terror--) the indignant superiority with
which she would send her away. But when she twisted herself round and
confronted in the light of the ante-room, which seemed a brilliant
illumination after the dark chamber within, the face of Mary! Mary!
Letitia’s strength collapsed, her self-command abandoned her, the
gasping breath came in a hoarse rattle from her throat, her jaw fell,
her eyes seemed to turn upon their orbits. She hung by the hand that
held her half insensible, helpless, overwhelmed, like a bundle of
clothes, as if she had no longer any sensation or impulse of her own.
The only thing that kept her from falling was the grip upon her hand,
and the support of the arm which Mary had put round her to reach it. She
was stunned and stupefied, scarcely alive enough to be afraid, though
there began to grow upon her mind by degrees a consciousness that this
woman who held her had been mad--which even when she had full command of
herself was what Letitia feared most in all the world. Mary was taller
than her prisoner. She seemed taller now than ever she had done in her
life, her eyes were shining like stars, her nostrils dilated with
excitement and strong feeling, her color coming and going. She did not
speak, but with her other hand held the milk to Letitia’s lips, always
with her arm supporting her, as one might offer drink to a child. “Drink
it,” she said at last, “drink it!” in a keen whisper that seemed to cut
the silence like a knife. No mercy, no pity were in Mary’s eyes. She
held Letitia’s wrist in a grip of iron, and pressing upon her, forcing
her head back, held the glass to her lips, “drink it!--drink it!” The
struggle was but a momentary one, and noiseless. They were like two
shadows moving, swaying, forming but one in their speechless conflict.
Then came the sudden crash of the shattered glass, as Letitia,
recovering her forces in her desperation, with a sudden twist of her arm
dashed it from her antagonist’s hand. The contents were spilled between
them, and formed a white pool upon the floor, from which, instinctively,
each woman drew back; and there they stood gazing at each other again.
Letitia’s every nerve was trembling with terror, physical fear
surmounting the first panic of discovery, which was a terror of the
mind. She expected every moment an _accès_ of madness, in which she
might be torn limb from limb--though at the same time calculating that
the mad woman might loose her hold, and there might be a possibility of
desperate flight, and of all the household on her side protecting her,
and sudden relief from every terror. The nature of the emergency brought
back to her after the first speechless horror her power of thought and
calculation. She kept her eyes upon Mary’s eyes, still wild with fright,
but awakened to a vigilant watch and keen attention to every indication
of the other’s looks. But this was not the Mary whom Letitia had ever
seen before. Her face had cleared like a sky after rain. It was like
that sky ethereally pale, exalted, with a transparence that seemed to
come from some light beyond. Mary was no longer a weak woman distracted
by over tenderness, by visionary compunctions, humbleness,
uncertainty--but clear and strong, with the quivering, expanding
nostrils, the wide open eyes and trembling lips of inspiration. She held
her captive still, though she stood a little apart from her, grasping
fast in her own Letitia’s shut hand.
“What did you put in it,” she said, “to kill my boy?”
“Mary!” Letitia panted. “Why do you try to frighten me?--your boy?--you
have told me you had no boy----”
“That you tried to kill--before he was born--that you drove out of my
knowledge--for I was mad. I know it all now--and you did it; what did
you put in that to kill my boy?”
There came a shriek from Letitia’s laboring breast. The words maddened
her again into frantic terror. She made a wild effort to free her hand.
Though it was a shriek, and intense as the loudest outcry, it was
subdued by the other terror of being heard and discovered. Between the
two she hung suspended, not able altogether to coerce nature, but still
keeping its expression under.
“Mary,” she cried, “let me go--let me go!”
“What was it you put in it to kill him?”
“Mary! Let me go--let me go!”
“Not till you tell me; and then you shall go--where you will; away from
here--away from my boy.”
They were women not used to any such struggle, and feeling in the depths
of their hearts that to struggle so for any reason was a shame to them;
and every moment as it passed brought this consciousness more near to
Mary, who in the first shock was capable of anything. Perhaps her hold
loosened, perhaps Letitia felt the magnetic effect of that relaxation
even before it was palpable. All at once she flung out her arm which
Mary held, and threw something which was in it into the dull small fire
which smouldered in the grate, and which was kept there, notwithstanding
the warmth of the July nights, for the uses of the sick room. There was
a faint clang of glass against the bars, and then the two figures
separated altogether and stood apart, still gazing at each other with
panting breath.
Letitia had felt that if she ever got free from the grasp that held
her--if ever she could throw off the hand that was like velvet yet
closed on her like iron, there was but one thing to do, to fly, to get
help, to make everybody understand that Lady Frogmore, mad as she had
once been before, had burst in on her and tried to kill her. But now
that she had freed herself she did not take to flight as she intended.
She drew away a step nearer the door, that she might retain that
alternative--and kept the most watchful eye upon her antagonist, ready
in a moment to fly. But she did not do so. Her breath began to come more
easily. Perhaps she was relieved that the attempt had failed--which at
once relaxed the tragic tension of her nerves; at all events her heart
gave a leap of satisfaction that there was no proof against her. The
milk spilt on the floor had soaked into the carpet--the vial was fused
into liquid metal, which could betray no one, in the fire. She had gone
through a terrible moment but it was over. She fell back upon the wall
and supported herself against it, propping up the shoulders which still
heaved with the storm that was passed--and then she said in something
like her usual voice--
“What is this all about, Lady Frogmore?”
Mary had grown restless like Letitia. The first impulse of passion and
excitement failed in her, it was so unusual to her gentle bosom. She
looked at this woman who stood defiant, staring at her, with a look of
wonder and doubt. “If I have done you any wrong--” she began with a
quaver in her voice; and then paused. “You know,” she began again, “that
I have not done you wrong. You stole into the room in the dark, you put
something in his drink. Oh,” cried Mary, clasping her hands, “if I had
not come at that moment, if God had not sent me, my boy might have been
murdered. How dare you stand and face me there? Go, go!” She stamped her
foot upon the floor. “Go! Don’t come near my child again.”
“Your child,” Letitia said, with a smile of scorn. “You who never had
one! You have said so a hundred times.”
Mary’s lips opened as if to reply--then she paused. “Who am I to be
angry!” she said. “I have given her cause to speak. Oh, go,” she cried,
“go. I will not accuse you. You know what you have done, and I know, and
that will separate us for ever and ever. No one, no one shall come near
my child to harm him again, for his mother will be there. Go, you wicked
woman, go.”
“You are mad,” cried Letitia, “who would believe a mad woman? Say what
you please, do you think anyone will listen to you! You are mad, mad!
I’ll have you put in an asylum. I’ll have you shut up. I’ll--Oh, save me
from her, she’s mad, she’s mad!” cried Letitia, with a shriek. There was
someone coming--and Mary had put forth her hands as if to seize her
again. Letitia ran past her to the door, and there stood for a moment
panting, vindictive. “Do you think they will leave him with a mad
woman?” she cried, then gave another shriek and fled; for it was not
John as she thought who was coming to protect her but another cloaked
figure like a repetition of Mary’s, who appeared on the other side. She
did not stop for further parley, but ran wildly, with the precipitation
of terror, into the long, silent, dim corridor.
“What has happened? What is it?” said Agnes, terrified, going up to her
sister who stood with clasped hands in the middle of the room, the light
falling upon her face. Mary put her arms round her, giving her a close
momentary embrace, which was half joy to see some one come who would
stand by her, and half an instinctive motion to support herself and
derive strength from her sister’s touch.
“I came in time,” she said. “I saved him. He is safe. I will never leave
my child again. Oh never while she is here----”
“What is it? What is it, Mary?”
Mary told her story, leaning upon her sister, holding her fast,
whispering in her ear. Even Letitia’s cries and vituperations had been
subdued, whispers of passion and desperation, no more. But to Agnes it
seemed an incredible tale, a vision of the still confused and wandering
brain. She soothed Mary, patting her shoulder with a trembling hand
saying, “No, no. You must have dreamt it. No, no, my dear: oh, that was
not the danger,” in a troubled voice. Mary detached herself from her
sister, putting Agnes away gently, but with decision. She took off the
bonnet which she had worn all this time, and tied the veil which had
dropped from it over her head. Then she went into the inner room without
a word. To pass into that silent and darkened room out of the agitation
of the other was like going into another world. The breathing of the
nurse in her deep sleep filled it with a faint regular sound. The
patient did not stir. Mary sat down at the foot of the bed, like a
shadow. Her figure in its dark dress seemed to be absorbed in the
dimness and pass out of sight altogether. Agnes stood at the door and
looked into the chamber full of sleep and silence, weighed down by the
mystery about her. Had that fantastic, horrible scene really happened,
or had it been but a dream? There were still traces on the carpet of
something white that had soaked into it, and her foot had crushed a
portion of the broken glass upon the floor. Was it true? Was it possible
it could be true? She stood wondering on the verge of the stillness that
closed over the sick room in which her sister had disappeared and been
swallowed up. It is strange at any time to look into a chamber thus
occupied. The feeble patient in the bed noiseless in the slumber of
weakness, the watcher by his side invisible in the gloom, a point of
wakeful, anxious life among those shadows. The nurse sleeping heavily in
the background, invisible, added another aching circumstance to the
mystery--nurses of that class do not sleep so. Was it true? Could it be
true?
She was called back to the common passage of affairs by a faint knock at
the door of the ante-room, and going to it found Ford, conducted by a
sleepy maid who had been roused to prepare Lady Frogmore’s room. “Where
is my lady, Miss Hill?” said the anxious Ford. “I can’t find my lady.
It’s late and she’s tired, and I must get her to bed.”
“No, Ford; she will not leave her son to-night.”
“Oh, Miss Hill, her son! She will die of it, or she will go wrong again,
and what will everybody say to me for allowing this? She must come to
bed. She must come to bed!”
“No one can make her do so, Ford--the nurse has gone to sleep, someone
is wanted here. I will stay by her, and if I can get her to go to bed I
will.”
“You will both kill yourselves,” cried Ford aggrieved, “and what will be
the advantage in that? You may, if you please, Miss Hill, I have no
authority; but my lady, my lady! It is as much as her life is worth.”
Agnes bade the maid bring her some shawls, and lie down herself. She
went softly into the sick room and put a wrap round Mary’s shoulders,
who raised her pale face, just visible through the dark in its
whiteness, to kiss her in token of thanks. Agnes permitted her hungry
heart an anxious look at the patient and satisfied herself, to the
relief of various awful doubts that had been growing on her that he
breathed softly and regularly, though almost inaudibly. She endeavored
in vain to rouse the sleeping woman behind, and then she herself retired
into the ante-room. Was it true? Could it be possible? As she sat there,
realizing the extraordinary way in which Mary and she had been allowed
to come in and take possession, when she perceived that no one came near
them, that Letitia did not return, did not even send a servant, but gave
up the patient and the charge of him without a word, without the
slightest notice of their possible wants, or care for them, a sense of
the strangeness of it all grew upon her. Could Mary’s tale be true? Oh,
God, could it be true? The woman sleeping so deeply, not to be
roused--the house fallen into complete silence as if everyone had gone
to bed. Mary and she, as it seemed, the only two waking in all the
place. Could it be true? Could it be true?
An hour or two later the scene had changed, the sick room was faintly
illuminated through the closed curtains with the light of the morning.
And Agnes, looking in, through the half open doorway, met Mary’s look,
her face like the clear, pale morning, a sort of ecstasy in her wakeful
eyes. She did not seem to have moved since Agnes threw the shawl round
her, nor had she closed those widely-opened eyes. When she had given her
sister that look they returned to the bed where Mar’s young wasted
countenance was now dimly visible. There was almost a chill in that blue
dawning of the new day; a something clear and keen above illusion, the
light of reality, yet the light of a vision. As Agnes looked, everything
returned to its immovable stillness again. The pale boy sleeping, the
pale mother watching, the nurse behind come into sight with her head
thrown back, a potent witness in her insensibility. Was it true? Could
it be true?