I went to the bed-side to watch her. Her arms lay upon the coverlet;
her lips were apart, and she breathed heavily. Her cheeks were flushed,
and lightly pressing my hand to her forehead I found that it burned. I
marked now that she slumbered no longer peacefully. At intervals her
form twitched, her fingers worked convulsively, and once her breathing
was so oppressive that she started, still slumbering, from her pillow,
fighting for breath.
I could see that she was very ill--very feverish; and if these
twitchings continued must soon awake. As I expected, she suddenly
opened her eyes and sat upright. She looked wildly around the room, and
then stared at me, but without recognition.
"Give me some water," she said.
I filled a tumbler and she drank it eagerly, sank back, and dropped
into a restless sleep again. But in a few minutes she once more started
up and asked for water, adding:
"Give me air. The bed-clothes suffocate me. I am burning."
The fever, indeed, was on her now, and I knew that she must have taken
it from her exposure in the grounds. I hastily left the room, ran
upstairs, and knocked at Mrs. Williams' door. She answered at once. I
told her that my wife was taken dangerously ill, and desired her to
come to her at once. I then hastened back and found that Geraldine had
risen from her bed, had thrown the window wide open, and stood leaning
half out of it.
I took her by the arm, and whilst I entreated her to return to bed
endeavoured gently to lead her away. She resisted me. Fearful of the
consequence of her exposure to the air, I exerted more strength. She
struggled violently, and would not stir. At times she turned her head
and stared at me with angry eyes, radiant with delirium, but totally
void of recognition. Mrs. Williams had now joined me. She at once
perceived the danger my wife stood in; also that she was delirious.
"She must be got to bed, Sir, and kept there," she whispered. "I will
help you to carry her."
I indeed needed her help. Frail and delicate as poor Geraldine was, the
fever made her powerful as a strong man. She cried and moaned piteously
amid her struggles, and when we had laid her down it took our united
strength to keep her from breaking from us and rushing again to the
window.
She grew exhausted at last and lay still, muttering wildly and
clutching at the bed-clothes.
"We must send for a doctor, Mrs. Williams," I said. "Is there one in
Cliffegate?"
"There is only Mr. Jenkinson the apothecary, Sir," she replied. "But I
could rouse up Hewett" (the lad who attended to the phaeton), "and it
wouldn't take him long to fetch Dr. Sandwin from Cornpool."
"Do so; and tell him to drive over as fast as he can."
Geraldine lay back with her eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling.
Her lips muttered continuously, but the exhaustion consequent upon her
violent struggles seemed to have left her too weak to articulate.
I left her side and paced the room in a mood I must not attempt to
define. What was I to think of her diary? That it was an insane
chronicle from beginning to end? or that it was true? If insane, how
much was she to be pitied! For all that she had recorded as having
witnessed, endured and done, must have been more definite and torturing
than ever the reality could have proved. If true ... I dared not think
it true. Yet though we may barricade reason with illusion, truth will
somehow force an entry. A terror that what she had written was the
truth, that her final record embodied no imaginary tragedy, weighed
upon me like lead. I tried to shake it from my mind.
Mrs. Williams returned. Her presence was grateful. It forced me, so to
speak, to break from my hateful thoughts and to abandon for the time
being speculation for reality.
The two hours that followed passed slowly. Mrs. Williams and I spoke
across the bed in whispers. Sometimes Geraldine would start up and
call for water; sometimes would make violent efforts to leave the
bed--efforts which it took all my strength to resist. As the time went
on she grew worse. She talked incessantly, a mad wild talk, fragmentary
as the mutterings of a dream--at intervals raising her voice to a
shriek then lowering it to a breathless whisper. What visions passed
before those vacant eyes of hers God only knows! But terrible they must
have been; terrible the scenes they enacted; for she plunged wildly,
as seeking to disperse them, then wailed entreaties to them to vanish,
whilst her body shook with strong tremors and the hand which I held
grew wet as though dipped in water.
The morning paled upon the window-blinds and made the candle-flame
sickly. The birds twittered and distant cocks sang to one another
their early defiance. Presently I heard the sound of wheels; Mrs.
Williams left the room, and returned some minutes after, ushering in
Dr. Sandwin.
He was a short spare man, suave but resolute. He found her calm, for
she had worn herself out with her ravings and convulsions. He drew to
the bedside, held her wrist, felt her forehead.
"She is in a bad way, Sir," he said. "The fever rages. I will write a
prescription, and perhaps you will allow one of your servants to run
with it to the chemist at Cliffegate."
Pen and ink were produced and the servant despatched. He looked at
Geraldine curiously for some time and then came round to me.
"There is an expression on the lady's face, Sir, which must be
habitual"----
"Her reason is impaired," I replied.
He bowed his head.
"The fever that is on her, Sir, arises, I should say, from a severe
chill. I judge that her constitution cannot be strong, and she should
have been restrained from exposing herself to the cold."
"She has a habit of walking in her sleep. Last night she left her bed,
and traversed the whole length of the grounds on her bare feet and
habited only in her nightgown. I feared this result, yet I did not dare
awaken her, having been cautioned against doing so. I could only hope
that the same Providence that guided her steps would preserve her from
any ill effects."
He drew to the bed and examined her face carefully. She lay so still
that she looked like a corpse. Her eyes were half closed, and the
whites showing through the lids gave her the ghastly aspect of death.
"You look care-worn and anxious, Sir," he said, turning to me; "your
vigil has been a long and trying one. Can I induce you to lie down for
a little time? Even an hour's sleep would benefit you, and enable you
better to meet the demands which your wife's illness may yet make on
you."
"What is your opinion of her case?" I asked anxiously.
"I can form no opinion as yet. I shall be better able to do so when she
awakens from this stupor. Meanwhile Mrs. Williams" (he evidently knew
her) "and I can keep watch."
"I really would try to get a little rest, Sir," said Mrs. Williams.
"You look to need it very badly. It is well to keep up your strength,
Sir; and I will promise to call you if it should be necessary."
There was wisdom in their advice; I did indeed require sleep. It was
not so much my body as my mind that was exhausted. I said I would lie
down in the adjoining room, and begged them to arouse me should the
slightest alteration appear in her symptoms.
I was chilly. The mornings were cold now, and want of sleep had robbed
me of my natural warmth. I rolled myself in a rug, laid myself on the
bed, and in a few minutes fell fast asleep.
I was awakened from a deep slumber by some one pulling my arm. The
sunshine poured through the blindless windows and filled the room with
light. My eyes, heavy with sleep, were dazzled by the glare; afterwards
I saw Mrs. Williams. I jumped up at once.
The look of white horror on her face gave me such a shock that I could
hardly speak. I heard a whispering going on outside the door. My belief
was that Geraldine was dead, and I pressed my hand to my heart while I
asked Mrs. Williams to tell me what had happened.
"Oh, Sir," she began, "it is too awful! I--I"----she stopped.
"In the name of God tell me--what is it?" I cried, leaping from the bed.
"The----the----I cannot speak it, Sir; the gardener is below----will
you go to him?"
"The gardener! Tell me of my wife; is she dead?"
"No, Sir. But she is raving wildly. She has told the whole story--how
she killed him"----she shook with horror.
Something told me what I had to expect. I calmed myself by a
supernatural effort.
"Where is the gardener?"
"He is in the hall, Sir."
I left the room. I passed the two servants who stood whispering with
pale faces near the door, and ran downstairs. Both gardeners stood in
the hall; and both were white as ghosts.
"Now," said I, "what have you to tell me?"
"Oh zur!" said the man called Farley, "I went into t'orchard this
morning to git soom apples for cook, and--and I zeed zigns anigh th'
hedge of soom 'un having been there i' th' night. The leaves they was
all tossed, and--and the ground fresh dug. Zo I went for my spade,
thinkin' summut amiss, an' begun to dig to zee what they moight ha' bin
oop to. And zur, in diggin' I strook summat zoft, and clearin' away th'
mould, coomed across a hand--a man's hand, zur!"
"A man's hand?"
"Oh, zur! I wur too frighted to dig vurther, but throws down my spade,
and coom runnin' to th' house to tell yer, zur, of what I'd zeen."
"Come with me, both of you," I said.
"Oh, zur!" they began.
"If it be a dead man, of what should you be afraid?" I cried fiercely.
"Come."
I led the way out, and they followed me. I did not want them to conduct
me to the spot; I knew where it was--I knew where she had led me last
night. I entered the orchard, the two men behind me. In a few minutes I
had reached the place.
The soil was broken. Around it the dry leaves and grass lay in heaps,
as though scattered by a high wind. Amid the newly-dug mould I saw the
fingers of a human hand.
"Take that spade and dig," I said.
One of the men took it up reluctantly and began to clear away the
mould. Bit by bit, as he dug the moist earth out of the grave, first
the arm, and then the body of a man completely dressed, appeared. The
gardener stooped, took the arm by the sleeve, and raised the body.
In spite of the soil that obscured the face, I knew it. _The dead man
was Martelli!_
I gazed upon this awful spectacle with fascinated eyes; then my senses
forsook me and I fell to the earth.
For three weeks I lay as one that is dead. The raging fever that
consumed me brought me to the brink of the grave; I was snatched from
the jaws of death by a miracle.
When I awoke from my delirium I was at Elmore Court. The first object
my eyes opened on was Mrs. Williams. With consciousness returned
memory. I inquired for my wife. The entrance of the doctor saved
her from replying. He forbade me to speak, on pain of a relapse.
Nature, utterly weakened by illness, succumbed to sleep. My slumber
was protracted through twenty-four hours; and when I awoke I was
convalescent.
It was then I learnt that my wife was dead. Her death had occurred
three days after I was taken ill.
Towards the end the delirium had left her. Reason had regained its
power, as though the soul, animated by the approach of death and the
promise of liberty, had shaken off the foul hand of madness. She had
asked for me; they told her I was ill. She would not believe them; she
declared that I had left her. They assured her that I was in the next
room; but she remained incredulous. A nurse had been summoned to watch
her, while Mrs. Williams tended me. On the night of her death, the
nurse having fallen asleep, she crept from her bed, stole to my room,
and was found by Mrs. Williams on her knees by my side, with her arm
round my neck, her cheek against mine, dead.
It was remarked, that after consciousness and reason had returned, she
did not speak of the crime she had committed, nor did her conversation
indicate the memory of it. Whence it was concluded that she died not
knowing what, in her madness, she had done.
When my health was restored, my evidence was taken with respect to
Martelli's death. The inquiry was purely formal. During my illness the
police had vigilantly investigated the affair, and from Geraldine's
diary and letters, coupled with the testimony of Mrs. Williams and the
inquiries they had prosecuted into Martelli's career, had established
the necessary evidence. From those inquiries I gathered the following
particulars.
Martelli's real name was Forli. He had been a teacher of Italian at
Gore House Academy, where he had met Geraldine, whom he eventually
induced to elope with him. Her account in her diary of the life she had
led with him was in every respect accurate. But you will remember she
had omitted the events of a year, and that year was now accounted for.
Forli had left her, to live with some abandoned woman, who, after a few
months' intimacy, avenged Geraldine by plundering him of his savings
and leaving him. It was supposed that he had heard of his wife having
inherited her grandmother's property; but his hatred of her, which he
never scrupled to confess, coupled with his conviction that had he
followed her she would not have hesitated to commence proceedings for
divorce, which would have professionally ruined him, effectually served
to keep him from her.
I could comprehend his hate, knowing his character, and guessing
Geraldine's power of exciting hate in those she hated. When she
had found his love decay, when her nature had turned sour under the
corrupting sense of his violated vows and her betrayed confidence, I
could guess the kind of light his presence would fire her eyes with,
the kind of language with which she would lash him into madness.
When he applied again for work he found that his conduct had excited a
prejudice, and that the schools in which he had always found a welcome
reception closed their doors against him. He resolved to change his
name, not knowing how far this prejudice might extend; and the better
to commence his life afresh announced his death in the newspapers.
He found employment; but his means were narrow, his occupation very
limited, when my advertisement met his eye. When he was once with me,
it may be supposed he was not very eager to go. He had recognised his
wife on meeting her in the fields, but had kept his secret well. When
he found that I was resolved to marry her he must have resolved upon
that scheme, of threatening her with exposure unless she purchased his
silence, which cost him his life.
I suspect he had hardly resolution enough to prosecute his plan at
first. He had hung about Cliffegate, so it was ascertained, after he
had left Elmore Court, living upon the money I had paid him.
Some years have elapsed since those days. I still occupy the house
in London which I took after getting rid of Elmore Court, and Mrs.
Williams continues to be my housekeeper. My old dream of senatorial or
literary honour has never recurred. Like Imlac, I am now contented to
be driven along the stream of life without directing my course to any
particular port.
The dead belong to the past, and I will not ravish from the grave in
which she lies that great sorrow of mine which lies buried with her. No
record of my grief shall plead for her; no memorial of my despair shall
be set down to moderate your judgment of her. She is dead. Her beauty,
her love, her madness, are nothing now but a memory and a pang.
THE END.
LONDON:
Printed by A. Schulze, 13, Poland Street.