One night it occurred to her that she might ring for Merat and send her
to the chemist's for a sleeping draught. But it was four o'clock in the
morning, and she did not like to impose such a task on her maid.
Moreover, she might get to sleep a little later on, so she wrote on a
piece of paper that Merat was not to come to her room until she rang for
her, and she lay down and folded her arms, and once more began to count
the sheep through the gate. But that night sleep seemed further than
ever from her eyes, and at eight she was obliged to ring. "Merat, I have
not closed my eyes all night."
"Mademoiselle ought to have a sleeping draught."
"Yes, I'll take one to-night Get me some tea. Another night like this
will drive me mad."
Late in the afternoon she slept for an hour in an armchair, and, a
little rested, went to walk in the park. She was not feeling so dazed;
her brain was not so light, and the sense of whiteness was gone; the
pains in the neck and arms too had died down; they were now like a dim
suggestion, a memory. But the greatest relief of all was that she was
not thinking, conscience was quiescent and in the calm of the evening
and the gentleness of the light, life seemed easier to bear. If she
could only get a night's sleep! Now she did not know which was the
worst--the reality, the memory, or the anticipation of a sleepless
night. She had wandered round the park by the Marble Arch, and had
continued her walk through Kensington Gardens, and sitting on the
hillside by the Long Water, with the bridge on her left hand and the
fountains under her eyes, she looked towards Kensington. There an
iridescent sky floated like a bubble among the autumn-tinted trees. She
was then thinking of her music and her friends; she hardly knew of what
she was thinking, when a thought so clear that it sounded like a bell
spoke within her, and it said that the things of which she was thinking
were as nothing, and that Life was but a little moment compared with
Eternity, and she seemed to see into the final time which lay beyond the
grave. "There and not here are the true realities," said the voice, and
she got up and walked hurriedly down the hillside, fearing lest the
fierce conflict of conscience should begin again in her. She walked as
fast as she was able, hoping to extinguish in action the conscience
that she dreaded, but she was weak and almost helpless, and had to pause
to rest. She stood, one hand on the balustrade, not daring to turn her
head lest she should see the spire of the Kensington Church.
She walked across the gardens, through the great groves, and sat down.
The grass was worn away about the roots of the trees and through the
gnarled trunks she could see the keeper's cottage covered with reddened
creeper. Perhaps it was the calm and seclusion that called her thoughts
to the convent garden, and she reflected that if she had not accepted
the nuns' invitation to tea, her life might have continued without
deviation. She was impressed with the slightness of the thread on which
our destiny hangs, and then by the inevitableness of our lives. We
perceive the governing rule only when we look back. The present always
seems chaos, but when we look back, we distinguish the reason of every
action, and we recognise the perfect fulfilment of what must be. Her
visit to the convent--how little it was when looked at from one side,
when looked at from another how extraordinary! If she had known that
Monsignor was going to ask her to go there, she would have invented a
plausible excuse, but she had had no time to think; his kind eyes were
fixed upon her, and he seemed so ready to believe all she said, that her
courage sank within her, and she could not lie to him. Perhaps all this
was by intention, by the very grace of God! The Virgin might have
interceded on her behalf, for is it not said that whoever wears the
scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel cannot lose his soul? But for the
last two years, for more than two years, she has not worn her scapular.
The strings had broken, and they had not been mended. She had intended
to buy another, but had not been able to bring herself to do so, so
hypocritical did it seem.
It might be that these dreadful nights of insomnia had been sent so that
she might have an opportunity of realising the wickedness of her life,
and the risk she incurred of losing her immortal soul. She dare not have
recourse to the sleeping draught, and must endure perhaps another
sleepless night. If they had been sent, as she thought they were, for a
purpose, she must not dare to hush, by artificial means, the sense God
had awakened in her; to do so would be like flying in the face of
Providence. She had never suffered from sleeplessness before, and could
not think that this insomnia was accidental. No, she dare not have
recourse to sleeping draughts, at least not till she had been to
confession. If afterwards she did not get to sleep, it would be
different. The fear arose in her of taking too much, of dying in her
sleep. If she were to awake in hell! And that evening, when Merat
reminded her of the draught, she said it was to be left on the table,
and that she would take it if she required it.
The darkness could not hide the slim bottle corked with a slim blond
cork, and so clear was the vision that she could read the label through
the darkness. It was only partially gummed on the bottom, and she could
read the pale writing. "To be taken before bedtime." The temptation
struck through the darkness, sweet and dreamily seductive it entered her
brain. She was tempted as by a dark, dreamless river; hushed in an
unconscious darkness she would be upon that river, floating through a
long, winding night towards a dim, very distant day. If she were to
drink, darkness would sink upon her, and all this visible world, the
continual sight of which she felt must end in lunacy, would pass from
her. So great was the temptation that she did not dare to get out of bed
and put the bottle away--if she did she must drink it, so she lay quite
still, her face turned against the wall, trying to find courage in the
thought that God had imposed the torture of these sleepless nights upon
her in order that she might be saved from the eternal sleeplessness of
hell.
Mistakes are made in the preparation of medicines, but if no mistake had
been made, a change in her health might unfit her for so large a dose,
and if through either of these chances she were to die in her sleep,
there was no question that she must awake in hell. She did not dare to
go to the draught, but lay quite still, her head close against the wall,
praying for darkness, crying for relief from this too fierce mentality;
it seemed to be eating up the very substance of her brain.
On the following evening she sat in her armchair watching the clock. It
had struck eleven--that was the time for her going to bed, but the hour
had become a redoubtable one. Bedtime filled her with fear, and the
thought of another sleepless night deprived her of all courage. She did
not dare to go upstairs. She sat in her armchair as if in terror of a
mortal enemy. She had hidden the bottle, but her maid had ordered
another. There were now two, sufficient to procure death, said her
conscience, and since dinner the temptation to commit suicide had been
growing in her brain; like a vulture perched upon a jag of mountain
rock, she could see the temptation watching her. She tried not to see,
but the thought grew blacker and larger--its beak was in her brain, and
she was drawn, as if by talons, tremblingly from her chair. She was so
weak that she could hardly cross the room; but the thought of death
seemed to give her courage, and without it she thought she never would
have had the strength to get upstairs. The attraction was extraordinary,
and her powerlessness to resist it was part of the fascination, and she
looked round the room like a victim looking for the knife. She could not
see the bottle on her dressing-table, and accepting this as a favourable
omen, she undressed and lay down.
After all, she might sleep without having recourse to death; but, lying
on the pillow, she could think of nothing but the slim bottle and the
slim blond cork, and a thick white liquid, and the dark river into
which she would sink, the winding darkness on which she would float, and
she had not strength to think whither it led. Her only thought was not
to see this world any more; her only desire not to think of Ulick or
Owen, and to be tortured no longer by doubt of what was right and what
was wrong. She was aware that she was losing possession of her
self-control, and would be soon drawn into the dreaded but much-desired
abyss; and in this delirium, produced by long insomnia, she began to
conceive her suicide as an act of defiance against God, and she rejoiced
in her hatred of God, who had afflicted her so cruelly--for it was
hatred that had come to her aid, and would enable her to secure a long,
long sleep. "Out of the sight of this world"--she muttered the words as
she sought the chloral--"I'll sleep, I'll sleep, I must sleep. Sleep or
death, one or the other, so long as I am out of the sight of this
world." But in her frenzy of desire for sleep she overlooked the slim
bottle with the slim blond cork. Yet it stood on the toilet-table amid
other bottles, right under her eyes, but over and over again she passed
it by, until, frightened at not finding it, she opened drawer after
drawer, and rushed to her wardrobe thinking it might be there. She
sought for it, throwing her things about, and, not finding it anywhere,
a cold sweat broke over her forehead. Another sleepless night and she
must go mad. If she did not find it, she must find another way out of
this agony, and the thought of cutting her throat, or throwing herself
out of the window, flashed across her mind. "Sleep I must have--sleep,
sleep, sleep!" she muttered, as with fearing fingers she emptied out the
contents of her little workbox, where odds and ends collected. It was
her scapular that came up under her hand, and at the sight of it, all
her mad revolt was hushed, and a calm settled upon her. "A miracle, a
miracle," she murmured, "the Virgin has done this; she interceded for
me;" and at the same moment, catching sight of the chloral right under
her very eyes, she could no longer doubt the miraculous interposition of
the Virgin. For how otherwise could that bottle have escaped her notice?
She had looked at the very place where it stood many times, and had not
seen it; she had moved the other bottles and she had not seen it. The
Virgin had taken it away--she was sure it was not there five minutes
ago--or else the Virgin had blinded her eyes to it. A miracle had
happened; and in a quivering peace of mind and an intense joy of the
heart, she mended the strings of her broken scapular. Then she hung it
round her neck, and kneeling by the bedside, she said the prayers that
it enjoined; and when she got into bed she saw a light shining in one
corner of the room, and, sure that it was the Virgin who had come in
person to visit her, she continued her prayers till she fell asleep.