IN THE NET.
The day was wearing slowly on; a day more terrible in its moral darkness
and suspense than perhaps had ever before descended upon that old house.
Mr. Mellen was engaged with a succession of visitors on business, with
whom he remained shut up in the library; Elsie took refuge at first in
her own chamber, but either nervousness or a desire to talk drove her
again to Elizabeth's room. Their dressing-rooms were separated by
Elizabeth's chamber, so Elsie flung the door open and ran into her
sister's room, exclaiming:
"You must let me stay; I can't be alone."
Elizabeth only replied by a gesture; she was walking slowly up and down
the floor as she had been during all the morning; it was entirely out of
her power to accept one instant of physical rest. She left the door open
and extended her promenade through the second chamber into Elsie's, and
then back, pacing to and fro till she looked absolutely exhausted, but
never once pausing for repose.
They were undisturbed, except when one of the servants knocked at the
door for orders, and at each request for admittance Elsie would give a
nervous little cry.
"Tell them not to come any more," said she, lifting both hands in
nervous appeal.
"They must have their orders," Elizabeth replied; "come what may,
everything must go on as usual to the last moment."
Elsie shivered down among her cushions and was silent. She had pulled
the sofa close to the hearth, gathered a pile of French novels about
her, and sat there trying her best to be comfortable in her feeble way.
"If you would only sit down," she exclaimed, at length.
"I cannot," replied Elizabeth; and resumed her dreary walk.
Then there came more interruptions; Victoria wished to know if they
would have luncheon.
"Marster's got in de library wid dem men--'spect missus don't want to go
down."
"What is she talking about?" questioned Elsie from her sofa.
"Luncheon," said Elizabeth; "will you have it up here?"
"As if one could eat--"
A warning gesture from Elizabeth checked her.
"You may bring the luncheon up here," Elizabeth said to the girl.
Victoria went out and closed the door.
"I believe they would come if we were dying, to know if we would take
time to eat," cried Elsie.
"Everything must go on as usual," was Elizabeth's answer.
"How can you stand there and talk so calmly to them!" cried Elsie. "It's
enough to drive one frantic."
"It is too late now to be anything but quiet--entirely too late."
Elsie began some shuddering complaints, but Elizabeth did not wait to
hear them; she had resumed her promenade, walking with the same
restless, eager haste, her eyes seeming to look afar off and unable to
fix themselves upon any object in the rooms.
"There is another knock," cried Elsie. "Oh, they'll drive me frantic!"
"Come in," Elizabeth said, sharply.
It was Victoria with the luncheon tray, and it seemed as if she never
would have done arranging it to her satisfaction.
"I brung yer some apricot jelly, Miss Elsie," she said; "I knowed you
had one of yer headaches."
But Elsie only moaned and turned upon her cushions.
"Dar's only cold chicken and dat patter," said Vic; "I took de ducks in
fur marster."
"There is quite enough," said Elizabeth; "you needn't wait."
"Yes, miss," returned Vic. "I hain't had no time yet to sweep de room
Miss Harrington had--Clo, she's ugly as Cain, ter day."
"It makes no difference," said Elizabeth, while Elsie threw down her
book in feverish impatience.
"Yes, miss, but tain't pleasant," returned Vic, with her most elegant
curtsey. "I likes to do my work reg'lar and in time, missus knows dat;
but when Clo gets into one o' her tantrums she sets ebryting
topsy-turvey, 'specially when dat yaller nig', Dolf, come down feering
wid de work."
"Then keep out of the kitchen," cried Elsie; "don't quarrel."
"Laws, Miss Elsie," said Victoria, with all the injured resignation of
suffering innocence; "I neber quarr'ls wid nobody, but I defy an angel
to git along wid Clo! She's jest de most aggravatin' piece dat eber wore
shoe leather! She's so mad 'cause she's gettin' ole dat she hates a
young girl wuss nor pison, she does."
Vic was now fairly started on the subject of her wrongs, and hurried on
before Elsie could stop her, with all the energy of a belated steam
engine. Elizabeth had walked into the other room, and Victoria took that
opportunity to pour out her sorrows with the utmost freedom to Elsie.
"Miss Elsie, sometimes I tinks I can't stand it. I wouldn't nohow, if
twarn't fur my affection fur you--you and miss," Victoria hastened to
add diplomatically, fearful that her mistress might be within hearing
and that the omission would be turned to her disadvantage. "Clo, she
gits agravatiner ebery day, and sence Dolf come back she's wurs'n a bear
wid a sore head."
"Oh, you make mine ache," cried Elsie.
"Laws, miss, I wouldn't for the worl'."
"Then go along, and let me sleep, if I can."
"Sartin, miss; but let me do somethin' for yer head," said Victoria, out
of the goodness of her heart.
"No, no; I only want to be let alone."
"If yer'd only let me bathe it wid cologny," persisted Vic.
"I don't want it bathed," fretted Elsie.
"Laws, miss, it does a heap o' good! Pennyryal tea's good--"
"Oh, do go away!" groaned Elsie.
"In course I will, miss; but I'd like to do something fur ye--yer looks
right sick."
"Then just go away, and don't come up again for the next two hours."
"Yes, miss, I'll jest--"
"Go out!" shrieked Elsie.
"I'se only fixin' yer cushins," said Vic. "Dear me, Miss Elsie, yer
allers says I'm right smart handy when yer has dem headaches."
"Oh, I can't bear anybody to-day."
"Dear me, ain't it a pity! Now, miss, I knows what 'ud be good for
yer--"
"Elizabeth," groaned Elsie, "do come and send this dreadful creature
away!"
This time Victoria deemed it prudent to make a hasty retreat, for she
stood in a good deal of awe of her mistress. She went out, reiterating
her desire to be useful, and really very full of sympathy, for she was a
kindhearted creature enough, except where her enemy, Clorinda, was in
the question.
"They'll kill me, I know they will!" moaned Elsie.
Elizabeth did not pay the slightest attention to her complaints, and she
relapsed into silence. Finally, her eye was caught by the luncheon
temptingly laid out. There lay a mould of delicious apricot jelly in a
dish of cut crystal, shining like a great oval-shaped wedge of amber;
the cold chicken was arranged in the daintiest of slices, and there was
custard-cake, Elsie's special favorite.
She made an effort to fancy herself disgusted at the bare sight of food,
and turned away her head, but it was only to encounter the fragrant odor
from the little silver teapot, which Victoria had set upon the hearth.
"Could you eat anything, Elizabeth?" she said, dejectedly.
"No, no; I am not hungry."
"But you never touched a morsel of breakfast, and you ate nothing all
yesterday."
"I can't eat now--indeed I can't," was Elizabeth's reply.
"Oh, nor I!" moaned Elsie. "I feel as if a single mouthful would choke
me."
She glanced again at the tray, and began to moan and weep.
"Oh, dear me! This day never will be over! Oh, I wish I were dead, I do
truly! Do say something, Bessie; don't act so."
But Elizabeth only continued her incessant march up and down the floor,
and Elsie was forced to quiet herself.
She rose from the sofa at last, stood by the window a few moments, but
some magnetism drew her near the luncheon-tray again. She took up a
spoon and tasted the apricot jelly.
"I want things to look as if we had eaten something," she said, giving
Elizabeth a wistful glance from under her wet eyelashes.
"You had better try and eat," said her sister.
"One ought, I suppose," observed Elsie. "I think I will drink a cup of
tea--won't you have some?"
Elizabeth shook her head, and with renewed sighs Elsie poured herself
out a cup of tea and sat down at the table.
"Oh, this wretched day! I'd rather be dead and buried! Oh, oh!"
In an absurd, stealthy way, she thrust her spoon into the apricot jelly
again, and stifled her moans for a second with the translucent compound.
"I wish I could eat; but I can't!"
She put a fragment of chicken on her plate, made a strong effort and
actually succeeded in eating it, while Elizabeth was walking through the
other rooms.
"I've tried," she said, when her sister appeared in the doorway again,
"but I can't, it chokes me."
She drank her tea greedily.
"I am so thirsty; I believe I've got a fever."
But Elizabeth was gone again, and Elsie stood staring at the paté--a
magnificent affair, she knew it was--one of Maillard's best, full of
truffles and all sorts of delicious things. She felt something in her
throat, which might have been hunger or it might have been weakness; she
chose to think it the latter.
"I feel so weak," she said, when Elizabeth returned on her round; "such
a sinking here," and she put her hand in the region where her heart
might be supposed to beat.
"You had better lie down," her sister said, absently.
That was not the advice Elsie wanted or expected, and she cried out,
spasmodically:
"How can I keep still! Oh, I wish I had some drops, or something to
take!"
She moaned so loudly that it disturbed Elizabeth, who became impatient.
"Drink your tea," she said, "and eat something; you cannot go without
food."
"Well, I'll try," said Elsie, resignedly. "I wish you'd sit down and
have a cup; perhaps I could eat then."
"Not now," replied Elizabeth.
The very sight of food was loathsome to her. She had hardly touched a
morsel for two days.
After a good deal more hesitation, Elsie attacked the paté, and the
jelly, and the pickles, and the custard-cake, and some crisp little
wafers, and, finally, made an excellent meal; all the while declaring
that she could not eat, that every mouthful choked her, that she
believed she was dying. To all these complaints Elizabeth paid no more
attention than she did to the meal that sensitive young creature was
making.
Elsie went back to her sofa, feeling somewhat comforted, and prepared to
take a brighter view of things. It appeared possible now for her to live
an hour or two longer--a little while before she had declared that her
death might be expected any moment.
"Do come and sit down, Bessie," she said, as Elizabeth entered, for
about the hundredth time. "I'll give you the sofa; you must be tired
out."
"No; I am not tired."
"But I am sure you have been for three hours march--march--march! Do sit
down."
Elizabeth only turned away in silence, but Elsie felt so much relieved
after her creature comforts, that she could not forbear attempting to
inspire her sister with a little of the hope which had begun to spring
up in her own narrow heart.
"Oh, Bessie," she cried, "I feel as if this would get over somehow, I do
indeed."
"But how? may I ask how?"
"Oh, I can't tell; but there'll be some way, there always is; nothing
ever does happen, you know."
Elizabeth did not reply. She was thinking of the books she had read, in
which women's ruin and disgrace were depicted with such thrilling force,
of the accounts in almost every daily journal of families broken up,
their holiest secrets made a public jest; of terrible discoveries
shaking a whole community with the commotion, and dragging all concerned
before the eyes of the whole world in scorn and humiliation. Yet Elsie
could say:
"Nothing ever does happen!"
She was thinking that perhaps in a few hours her beautiful home might be
agitated by a discovery, mysterious and full of shame as any of the
occurrences in the novels she was recalling; only a few hours and she
might be driven forth to a fate terrible as that of the unhappy women
whose names she had shuddered even to hear mentioned.
Not for one instant did she delude herself. She knew that the crisis was
at hand, the fearful crisis which she had seen approaching for weeks.
This time there would be no loophole of escape--this last respite was
all that would be granted her; and even now that she had gained that
much, there seemed every hour less probability of her being able to turn
it to advantage.
Then the task before her, the thing she had to do, a work at which the
stoutest man's heart might have quailed, alone in the dead of night,
with the fear of discovery constantly upon her, and the horror of an
awful task frenzying her mind!
She clenched her hands frantically as the scene presented itself, in all
its danger, to her excited fancy. She saw the night still and dark,
herself stealing like a criminal from the house; she saw the old cypress
rising up weird and solemn, she heard the low shiver of its branches as
they swayed to and fro; she saw the earth laid bare, saw----
The picture became too terrible, she could endure no longer, and with a
shuddering moan sank upon her knees in the centre of the room:
"God help me! God help me!"
Elsie sprang off the couch and ran towards her with a succession of
strangled shrieks.
"What is the matter? What ails you? You frighten me so. Are you
sick--did you see something? Is he going that way?"
But the woman neither saw nor heard; her eyes were fixed upon vacancy,
an appalling look lay on her haggard face, which might well have
startled stronger nerves than those of the girl by her side.
"Elizabeth! Elizabeth!" shrieked Elsie, in genuine terror which there
was no mistaking.
"I must do it," muttered the woman; "I must do it!"
"Oh, Bessie, dear Bessie! Get up! Don't look so! Oh, for heaven's sake!
Bessie, Bessie!"
Elsie threw herself upon the floor beside her sister, crying and
shrieking, clinging to her, and hiding her face in her dress. Her
agitation and wild terror recalled Elizabeth to her senses. She
disengaged herself from Elsie's arms and staggered to her feet.
"It's over now," she said, feebly, with the weariness of a person
exhausted by some violent exertion; "I am better--better now."
"Oh, you frightened me so."
"I will not frighten you again. Don't cry; I am strong now."
"What was the matter? Did you see anything?"
"No, no. I was only thinking; it all came up so real before me--so
horrible."
"But it may be made safe yet," urged Elsie. "If you can escape this
time--only this once."
She did not connect herself with the trouble which might befall her
sister. Even in that moment of anguish, her craft and her selfishness
made her remember to keep present in Elizabeth's mind the promise she
had made.
"Only this once," she repeated.
"It is too late," returned Elizabeth. "I knew the day would come--it is
here!"
"But he can't discover anything, Bessie, when everybody is abed."
"Have you thought what I must do?" she broke in. "The horror of
appealing to that man is almost worse to bear than exposure and ruin."
Elsie wrung her hands.
"Don't give way now. You have borne up so long; don't give way when a
little courage may save everything."
"I shall not give way; I shall go through with it. But, Elsie, it will
all be useless; the end has come, deception cannot prosper forever."
"No, it hasn't! I'm sure it hasn't! Think how many secrets are kept for
ever. It needs so little now to make all secure; only don't give way,
Bessie--don't give way."
"Be quiet, child; I shall not fail!"
Elizabeth walked away and left the girl crouching upon the floor, went
to the glass and looked at herself. The rouge Elsie had rubbed on her
cheeks burned there yet, making the deathly pallor of her face still
more ghastly; her eyes gleamed out of the black shadows that circled
them so full of agony and fear that she turned away with a shudder. Her
hair had fallen loose, and streamed wildly about her shoulders. She
bound it up again, arranged her dress and recommenced her restless walk.
"Get up, Elsie," she said; "some one may come in."
Elsie took refuge on her sofa, and sobbed herself into a sound slumber,
while Elizabeth, in her haggard anxiety, moved up and down, wounded by
cruel reflections which wrung her soul and left it dumb, with a passive
submission, born rather of desperation than endurance.