"It happens that I am in need of a sum of money. An opportunity is
open to my son which will be to his advantage, but I am not rich
enough to purchase it."
"How much is needed?" I asked.
She named a sum which was modest in comparison with the limit which
Gabriel Carew had given me, and I at once consented to pay it to her
for her information. I had money with me, and I counted out the amount
she required, and handed it to her. After ascertaining that it was
correct, she commenced.
"When I accepted the situation Mr. Carew offered me, I did it with my
eyes open. I was at that time employed in a lunatic asylum, and was
dissatisfied with my rate of pay. Mr. Carew offered me higher terms.
His wife was a dangerous woman, and needed constant watching. Properly
speaking, she should have been placed in an asylum, but the thought of
so doing was hateful to her husband, who desired to keep his domestic
affliction from public knowledge. He would have regarded such a
disclosure as an indelible disgrace. There are similar secrets in many
families. At the time he married her, he had no suspicion that her
blood was tainted, and it was only three months before the birth of
Gabriel Carew that he made the discovery. I do not profess to be
thoroughly familiar with all the particulars; I am not a prying woman,
and was contented with what he told me. When he made the dreadful
discovery he and his wife were abroad, and the occasion of it, so far
as I could gather, ran in this fashion. Mr. Carew was occupying a
house in Switzerland--he was rich at the time--and was entertaining
guests. Among them was a false friend who was managing his affairs in
England, where Mr. Carew lived for the greater part of every year.
Ultimately this friend robbed him of his fortune, which Mr. Carew
never recovered, coming, however, into another later on, which enabled
him to purchase the estate of Rosemullion. One evening there was a
large party in Mr. Carew's house, in which his friend was stopping.
Mrs. Carew was passionately fond of music, and there was a Tyrolean
air for which she had an infatuation. She sang and played it again and
again, and became much excited. It is not out of place to say that she
was a very beautiful woman. The evening passed on, and the guests had
departed. All but one--her husband's false friend, who was stopping in
the house. Either his duties as a polite host or some other business
called her husband away, and Mrs. Carew and this friend were left
alone. He asked her to play and sing again, and she did so for him;
and then he made love to her. She repulsed him indignantly, but he was
not to be easily daunted, and a climax arrived when he grossly
insulted her. This roused her to fury, and she caught an ornamental
dagger---but a weapon capable of mischief--from the table, and would
have plunged it into his heart had he not caught her wrist and
disarmed her. He flung the dagger away, and then coolly told her that
her husband had implicit confidence in him, and that he would invent a
story that would ruin her. He told her, too, that he had her husband
in his power, that she and he were at his mercy, and that he could
beggar them at any moment. There occurred then a singular change in
her; her excitement left her, and she became as cool as he. Deceived
by this, he renewed his suit, but she held him back, and she said one
word to him: 'Wait!' To wait meant to hope, and he said he would be
content if she would play and sing to him again. She did so--the same
Tyrolean air she had sang so many times on this evening. Her husband
came in, and the scene ended. In describing it I am drawing from what
Mr. Carew told me afterwards in England. But the incident was not to
end there. Mr. Carew and his wife retired, and he, awakening in the
middle of the night, missed her from his side. He started up, and saw
that her clothes were gone. At the moment of the discovery he heard a
cry, and he ran from the room. He saw his wife approaching him; she
was fully dressed, and she held in her hand the ornamental dagger,
which was stained with blood. There was a smile on her lips, but
although he stood straight in front of her, with a candle in his hand,
she did not appear to see him. She passed by without a word or look of
recognition. He followed her to their bedroom, and there she laid the
dagger aside, undressed, and went to bed. She had been all the time
fast asleep. When she was abed he looked at the blood-stains on the
dagger; there was no wound upon her; from whom came the blood? From
whence the cry? The direction from which his wife had come was that of
the room occupied by his friend. He went there, and found his guest
just reviving from a state of insensibility caused by a stab in his
breast while he was asleep. Mr. Carew could form but one conclusion,
and his sole aim now was that the matter should be kept quiet. In this
he succeeded, having invented a story which his friend professed to
believe, and into which Mrs. Carew's name was not introduced. It
suited Mr. Carew's friend not to dispute the invented story; his wound
was not very serious, and he subsequently repaid the injury by
beggaring the man who had reposed entire confidence in him, and whose
wife he had attempted to lead to her ruin. Mr. Carew could not
immediately question his wife, for the next morning she was
dangerously ill. The ordinary doctors who were called in did not
appear to understand the case, and eventually Mr. Carew consulted a
foreign specialist of renown, who informed him that there was insanity
in his wife's blood, and that it would most likely assume a phase in
which there would be danger to those about her. This alarmed Mr.
Carew, not for his own sake, but for his wife's. There was a law in
that part of the country, which, put in force, would have removed Mrs.
Carew from his care, and he made haste for England, where he would
feel safe. Thus far in his wife's illness no dangerous symptoms were
visible, and he flattered himself into the belief that the foreign
doctor was wrong in the opinion he had given. The most marked
characteristic of the disease manifested itself in a harmless fashion,
being simply a sentimental passion for the Tyrolean air Mrs. Carew had
sung so many times on the night when the hidden seed of insanity began
to grow. Under these conditions Gabriel Carew was born. She insisted
upon nursing the child, which, had I been in their service at the
time, I should not have allowed. When Gabriel was two years of age,
the dangerous symptoms of which the foreign doctor had warned Mr.
Carew began to manifest themselves, and I was engaged as nurse. Mr.
Carew had lost his fortune then, but he was not entirely without
means, the largest portion of which was spent upon his wife. He paid
me liberally, his one desire in life being to keep the skeleton of his
home concealed, not only from the world, but from the knowledge of his
son. He thought that, growing up in ignorance of his mother's
condition, Gabriel might escape the contagion. I thought differently,
but we had no discussions on the subject. He had engaged me to perform
a certain duty, and I performed it--there it ended. I had nothing to
do with consequences. After Mr. Carew took possession of Rosemullion
his wife became worse; there were weeks together when no person but I
could approach her with safety. I had perfect control over her. She
was obedient, through fear, to my lightest word. It was certainly
merciful that the sad secret, having been so long concealed from
Gabriel, should remain so. If mischief were done, it was not now to be
averted. This is the explanation of Gabriel Carew's lonely boyhood
life, and it will possibly help to explain any strange peculiarities
you may have observed in him. I do not consider I have violated the
second promise I gave to his father--that I would not divulge without
powerful cause the secret of Gabriel Carew's unhappy inheritance.
There seems to me here to be cause sufficient for secrecy not to be
any longer observed. My tongue being now unsealed, I am ready to reply
to any questions you may ask."