"Whence is that knocking?
How is 't with me when every noise appals me;
What hands are here? Ha! they pluck out mine eyes.
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand?"
SHAKESPEARE.
"In the wind there is a voice
Shall forbid thee to rejoice;
And to thee shall night deny
All the quiet of her sky;
And the day shall have a sun
Which shall make thee wish it done."
BYRON.
I know not how long I remained in the same place, rooted to
the spot, the blood rushing at one instant with such violence
to my head, that it seemed as if it would burst from my
temples; and the next I felt a cold sweat on my forehead, and
a horrible fear creeping over my heart. I could not move, and
my tongue clave to the roof of my mouth; my eyes felt as if
they were starting out of my head, and I sought to close them
and could not. There was that torrent before them; it roared,
it foamed; and the foam looked like a shroud; and the roaring
of the waters sounded like a scream; and I screamed too--a
dreadful scream--and then all at once I grew calm; for there
were hurried steps on the gallery, and terror paralysed me. It
was the housekeeper and the doctor; as they came, the latter
said:--"Take the other child to her,--perhaps she will cry
when she sees her." And as I was trembling violently, and did
not seem to hear what they said to me, though I did hear every
word, the man took me up in his arms, and carried me like a
baby into the drawing-room. Mrs. Middleton was there with a
face paler than a sheet; when she saw me her mouth quivered,
but she did not speak or cry; she waved her hand, and then
laid her head again against the open door, and seemed to
listen with her heart. I felt as if I could hear it beat where
I sat. Five or six minutes passed, and then Mr. Middleton
rushed into the room. She looked up into his face and
shrieked--the same fearful shriek I had heard once before. He
took her hands, which she was wringing wildly, and putting his
arm round her, he whispered, "Now, Mary, all is over; show me
that you believe in God." She struggled for a moment, her
chest heaved convulsively, and then she burst into a violent
fit of hysterical crying. He supported her out of the room,
and they went away together. The housekeeper came up to the
sofa where I was, and taking one of my hands, she said, "And
where were you when the poor thing fell?"
I started up as if she had shot me; I rushed out of the room,
across the hall, through the winding passages, and up the
stairs into my own room. I locked the door, and falling on my
knees with my face against the bed-post, I pressed my temples
with my hands as if to still their throbbing. During the next
two or three hours, each knock at my door made me jump as if a
cannon had gone off at my ear; each time I opened it I
expected to be accused of Julia's death,--to be told that I
had killed her; and once, when it was my uncle's step that I
heard approaching, I opened my window, and was on the point of
throwing myself out of it: strange to say, the only thing that
stopped me was the fear of adding to Mrs. Middleton's anguish.
I suppose it was the excessive terror that I felt of being
denounced, or of betraying myself, that saved me from a brain
fever; the very intensity of this anxiety subdued the
extravagance of my despair, and I calmed myself that I might
appear calm. I took some food, because I instinctively felt
that I needed strength and support. It never occurred to me,
it never once crossed my mind, to reveal what I had done. I
felt that if any one accused me, I must have died on the
spot--fled, destroyed myself--I know not what; but at the same
time there was a rigid determination in my soul, that as in
the first moments that had followed Julia's death, I _could_
not, so now I _would_ not, speak. Each hour that elapsed
confirmed this resolution; for every hour that passed by in
silence, every word that was uttered by me, or before me, on
the subject, made the act of self-accusation grow into a
moral impossibility.
When it became dusk the solitude of my room grew intolerable
to me, and I wandered through the house seeking for
companionship, and yet starting off in a different direction,
if the sound of steps or of voices drew near to me. At last I
found my way unobserved into the drawing-room, and sat there,
or paced up and down for a length of time, till at last the
door opened, and my uncle came in.
He walked up to me, laid his hand on my shoulder, and said, in
a voice of subdued emotion "You are now our only child,
Ellen."
I suppose my countenance bore a very wild expression at that
moment, for he looked at me with surprise, and then added in a
still more soothing manner, "Go to your aunt, my dear Ellen;
she will not feel herself childless while you are spared to
us."
A choking sensation rose in my throat, and a cold sweat stood
on my forehead, but I got up, and walked resolutely to my
aunt's room.
She was overwhelmed with grief; her hands were feverish, and
her head burning. I sat down by her, and silently employed
myself in bathing her temples with cold water. She now and
then laid her aching head on my shoulder, and burst into an
agony of crying, which seemed to relieve her.
She asked me where my uncle was; and I could have told her,
for I had heard the servants say, as I was coming up stairs,
that he was returning to the river side, to make one search
more after the body of his child.
The moon was shining brightly, and several men were employed
in dragging the deep and rapid stream; I pointed that way, and
she seemed at once to understand me, for a deep groan was her
only answer. Once she said, "Pray for me, Ellen;" and then for
the first time remorse took its place by the side of terror in
my mind. I felt I could not pray--no exactly-defined idea of
guilt presented itself to my mind, and yet there was a murmur
in my ears, the burden of which was, "She has killed her--she
has killed her;" (and as when standing on a dizzy height, with
a firm hold on some railing or plank of support, something
whispers to one, "If I should let it go!") I felt afraid that
the next moment I should say out loud, "I have killed her."
The idea of prayer made me tremble. Once I said mechanically,
"O God! forgive me," and then shuddered. It sounded to myself
like a confession of murder. I dared not address God as I had
done the day before. One instant I thought of myself as of a
guilty wretch, unworthy to live, unworthy to lift up her voice
in prayer, or to raise her eyes to the calm and cloudless sky.
At other times I felt as if God had dealt too hardly with me:
I pitied myself, and my heart waxed rebellious in its grief. I
said to myself, like Cain, "My punishment is greater than I
can bear;" and then I almost cursed myself for having thought
of Cain--for I had not murdered my cousin, though somebody
said I had killed her. For one instant anger had maddened me;
without thought, without intention, I had struck her--one
hasty blow was given, and now my youth was blighted, my peace
of mind was gone; the source of all pure joys, of all holy
thoughts, was dried up within me. I should never stand again
in the sacred silence of the solemn night, and feel as if its
whispering winds were bringing tidings from a better world to
my soul. And in those days of glowing beauty, when streams of
light intoxicate the eye, when all nature breaks into song, or
blossoms into flower, never again should I feel myself as in
past years, a part of that bright creation, longing only, in
the fulness of my heart, to prostrate myself in fervent
adoration before Him who gave to the birds and to the streams
a voice to praise Him; to the glorious heavens a charge to
magnify Him; and to man, enthusiasm, emotion, poetry,
music--_all_ that lifts the soul above itself and the material
world around it, to the wide fields of enraptured
contemplation.
But now a chain would evermore weigh down my spirits--a dark
remembrance would ever stand between me and the sunny skies--a
tone, as of the dying and the dead, would ever mingle with the
sounds of melody, with the voice of love, with the words of
affection. Yes--
"All bright hopes and hues of day
Had faded into twilight grey;"
or rather into the darkness of night. I wept over myself, over
my blighted youth, my destroyed happiness, my lost
innocence--and I was only sixteen!
There I sat, that long night through; my aunt had sunk into
the heavy slumber of exhaustion, her hand in mine, her head on
my shoulder. I dared not move--scarcely breathe; hot searing
tears were slowly chasing each other down my cheeks, and the
storm within was raging wildly in my breast--but I did not
pray; I could not: a sheet of lead seemed to stretch itself
between me and Heaven; and when the light of day broke slowly
into the chamber of mourning, I closed my eyes, not to see the
sun in its calm majesty, dawning on the first day of changed
existence.
The first days that follow a great and sudden misfortune carry
with them a kind of excitement that keeps off for a time the
stunning sense of desolation from the soul. My uncle returned
on the following morning, bearing with him the body of his
child, which he had at length succeeded in rescuing from the
bed of the torrent, which had carried it down far below
Elmsley.
The preparations for the interment in the village church
seemed to rouse the afflicted parents to exertions, that,
though intimately connected with the loss that had befallen
them, were almost a relief to Mrs. Middleton, after the
inactivity of the last twenty-four hours.
I had hardly left her room all day, and when she told me that
my uncle expected us all to meet him at dinner, I felt it
would be impossible to go through the trial; but, as she was
going to make the exertion, I could not refuse to follow her.
When we entered the drawing-room together, Edward Middleton
and Henry Lovell were both standing before the fire-place. It
was well for me that our meeting took place while the
catastrophe of the day before was so recent, that the
agitation I betrayed could pass under the garb of sorrow and
nervousness. I was trembling violently; I felt a degree of
conviction, that amounted to moral certainty, that one of
those two men had witnessed the frightful scene, which
resembled more a hideous dream than an actual reality. Both
were coming to me with outstretched hands. Could they both
mean to take mine? Did not one of them know what that hand had
done? A mist rose before my eyes, and I fainted.
When my senses returned, I found myself in bed, my aunt by my
side, and a number of restoratives employed to bring me back
from my swoon. I recovered, and the next morning, on awaking
after some hours of feverish and restless sleep, I heard a
noise in the court under my windows.
I rose hastily, and saw the funeral procession moving slowly
from the house across the grounds, and taking its way towards
the village church. The little coffin was carried by four of
the grey-headed servants of the house; my uncle and aunt were
walking on foot beside it, and my cousin and Henry Lovell were
following them. The rest of the servants, among whom was
Julia's nurse, and almost all the inhabitants of the village,
closed the procession. I watched the funeral train till it was
out of sight, and for the first time I forgot myself, for a
few minutes, and my own dreadful share in this calamity, and
thought only of my aunt, and of her misery. I called to mind
too the image of that child, whom I had so often nursed to
sleep in her infancy, whom I had carried in my arms, and held
to my bosom. When I pictured to myself the little body laid in
its narrow grave, and thought how short a time ago life was
strong within it, and that it was _my_ hand that had sent her
to her watery grave, my agony grew so intense that I wonder it
did not kill me, or drive me to some desperate act of madness.
It did not; and pity for myself soon hardened my heart against
the sufferings of others. I ceased to weep for Julia; she was
dead indeed; but was not death a blessing compared to such a
life as mine would be? My aunt had lost her child; but was not
her sorrow as nothing in comparison with mine--mine, who had
made her childless? And now a sudden thought flashed on my
brain. Why was I at home? Why was I alone? Did they suspect
me? Had the master of my fate, the witness of my crime, warned
them to keep the murderess away from the grave of their child?
Was I already become as a monster to them? Did they loathe the
sight of me? Would they send me to prison? or would they turn
me out of their house; and should I fly along dusty roads, and
through dark alleys and crowded streets, and would the mob
follow, as I once read that they followed a woman who was
thought to have murdered her child, and point at me, and hoot,
and groan, and cry "There goes the wretch that murdered the
child?" I fell on my knees; it seemed as if there was a sound
of footsteps behind me--a shout of execration in my ears. It
wan a waking nightmare; I was growing delirious, and when I
felt something touch me, and a warm breath on my shoulders, I
gave a piercing scream, and fell with my face on the ground. A
low moaning roused me from this state. I looked up and saw my
great Newfoundland dog, who always slept in my room; he was
licking my hands and neck. His kind eyes were looking at me
from under the rough hair that shaded them; and he moaned
gently as he did so. I was still _almost_ a child, for I
suppose that none but a child would have found comfort in this
creature's mute sympathy. As it was, I flung my arms wildly
round its neck, and sobbed. He did not struggle, but patiently
stood there, though my tears were falling fast on his head.
"Poor, poor Hector I you never will be told what I have done;
you never will turn away from me with horror, though all the
world should do so. Poor, poor Hector! my good, my kind dog!"
This little incident had done me good, and the tears I had
shed had relieved me. I dressed myself, and when my aunt
entered my room at her return from the funeral--when she
embraced me with much emotion--when she told me how she and my
uncle had hoped that I might have slept over the last trying
hour--when she tenderly reproached me for having left my
bed--when she drew me to her, and, parting the hair that hung
loosely and heavily on my forehead, laid her cold hand upon
it, and then pressed me to her bosom--I felt a relief that for
the moment _almost_ resembled joy. Under the influence of this
momentary reaction I followed her to the dining-room, where we
found my uncle sitting in mournful silence; he pressed my hand
as I approached him, and we all sat down to eat, or try to
eat, the breakfast prepared for us. This melancholy meal over,
I withdrew to the furthest end of the drawing-room, and sat
down at my embroidery frame, which stood near to an open
window, and began to work with something like composure. From
this moment everything about us resumed its former aspect, and
the habits of our daily life seemed to have experienced
scarcely any change. My uncle's reserve and gloom were,
perhaps, somewhat deeper than before; and Mrs. Middleton at
times gave way to uncontrollable bursts of grief; but her
elastic spirit, bowed down for awhile by the pressure of
sorrow, rose again with the buoyancy which affliction can
repress, but hardly destroy in a nature like hers, to which
happiness seemed almost a condition of existence. A sorrow
which would have broken this spring within her must have
killed her--but this did not; and the full flow of her
affections seemed to return in what had once appeared to be
their natural channel--she clung to me with a fondness that
seemed every hour to increase. Superior as she was, there was
about her a kind of dependence upon others--upon their love
and their sympathy--which was inexpressibly endearing. In
those early times of sorrow I received her caresses, and
listened to the words of love which she addressed to me, with
something of the spirit with which I can imagine that the Holy
Francoise de Chantal may have pressed to her bosom the burning
cross, that stamped upon her breast the sign of salvation,* [*
Madame de Chantal, the Founder of the Order of the Visitation,
impressed upon her breast, with a burning iron, the sign of
the cross.]--at once the object of intense adoration and the
instrument of acute torture.
My cousin and Henry Lovell staid on at Elmsley, and nothing,
in the manner of either, gave me the least clue to discover
which was the possessor of my dreadful secret. Both were kind
to me, and both seemed to regard me with more interest than
usual. In Edward's countenance I sometimes read a look of
severity, which made the blood forsake my heart; but then at
other times his voice was so gentle in speaking to me, his
countenance had so much sweetness in it, as he turned his eyes
full upon me, that I felt re-assured, though, at the same
time, intensely miserable.
With Henry I felt more at my ease--why I cannot tell, but he
was the only person with whom, since the fatal day of Julia's
death, I could speak in the same manner as I did before. There
was something soothing to my wayward feelings in the
thoughtless gaiety which he soon resumed. In the course of a
few weeks I persuaded myself nearly, if not entirely, that
fancy, allied with terror, had conjured up, in that fatal
hour, the cry which had sounded in my ears; at least I
pacified my fears by repeating this supposition to myself. It
was like a sedative, that numbs without removing the pain we
feel. It made me better able to endure what I had to go
through. Church was a terrible ordeal to me. I went of an
afternoon only, for several following Sundays, because I could
not bear to hear the commandments read; and yet I hated myself
for my weakness. One Sunday morning Edward said to me, across
the breakfast-table, "Pray, Ellen, have you made a vow never
to go to church of a morning?" I felt myself turning pale, but
answered quietly, "I am going now;" and I went, and God only
knows what I suffered there.
Biding grew into a passion with me at that time. There is such
excitement in the rapid motion--in the impatience of the
animal that bears one along--in the sense of power--in the
feeling of life, which is never so strong within one, as when,
over a common, or a wild muir, one can dash along at the
horse's full speed, with the wind in one's face, and the turf
under one's feet. In every weather I rode; the more heavily it
rained, the more wildly it blew, the more I enjoyed excursions
that lasted several hours, and after which I returned home,
fatigued in body, excited in mind, and able to sleep at night
from sheer exhaustion. Henry was my constant companion on
these occasions, and indulged every fancy I formed, as to the
length and direction of these excursions. He applauded my
courage when, arrested by no obstacles, I cleared fence after
fence, or waded through rapid streams, in order to arrive, a
quarter of an hour sooner, at some point I had fixed upon. His
talent for conversation was great, and he possessed the art of
captivating the attention to an extraordinary degree.
Intercourse with him became to me, in a moral point of view,
what riding was in a physical: It was an exercise of the
mental faculties, that stilled the process of self-tormenting
within me. He admired me--I saw it plainly, and far more than
he had done before the change that had come over me; at least
I fancied so; and one day, as I was turning over the leaves of
a blotting-paper book, in the library, I found the following
verses:
"She was a child, and in her dreamless eyes
There slept a world of unawakened thought--
And in her voice, her laughter, and her sighs,
No spirit lingered, and no magic wrought;
For as the haze that veils the glorious skies
At morning prime; or as the mist that lies
On ocean's might: or as the solemn hour
Of Nature's silence, when the Heavens lower,
Such was her childhood; but its hour is past;
The veil is drawn, the mist has cleared at last.
And what though with a storm! Who does not find
In wind, in waves, in Nature's wildest strife
With things material, or in man's own mind,
A deeper and more glorious sense of life
Than in the calm of silent apathy?
Who would not stand within the Sun's full blaze,
Though scorched and dazzled by his burning rays?
Oh, we can watch with ardent sympathy.
The stormy floods of rising passion roll
Their swelling surges o'er the silent soul!
And we can gaze exulting on the brow
Where restless thoughts and new, are crowding now:
Each throb, each struggle, serving but to feed
The flame of genius, and the source of thought.
Be mine the task, be mine the joy, to read
Each mood, each change, by time and feeling wrought,
And as the mountain stream reflects the light
That shoots athwart the sky's tempestuous track,
So shall my soul, her soul's impassioned might,
As in a broken mirror, image back."
I read these lines with a strange mixture of sensations. "Does
he know the truth?" was my first thought; and it made the
blood rush to my cheeks. The next was, "Whether he knows it or
not, he admires me." I smiled with bitterness indeed, but
still I smiled; and as I read these verses, over and over
again, they seemed to change the current of my feelings. For
the first time, I said to myself, "There are things in the
world yet worth living for, besides those I have
forfeited--peace of mind, and an untroubled conscience.--There
is genius, which, as he says, thrives in the atmosphere of
suffering; there is the power which genius gives to 'ride
triumphant, and have the world at will;' there are the powerful
emotions of the soul when struggling for mastery, when intoxicated
with success, when revelling in homage. If sorrow, if guilt, if
despair, have made my eyes more bewitching, and my voice more
thrilling; if they have roused the latent spirit within me, it
shall not be in vain; I will drink deeply at these new sources
of enjoyment, if not of happiness; I will cast behind me the
burden borne in such anguish; I will break with the _past_,
the dreadful past, and begin a new era." And, seizing the
paper which was lying on the table, I walked quickly across
the library. As I turned the comer of the recess which formed
the eastern end of the gallery, I saw Edward sitting by the
window, where often, during the preceding summer, we had
watched the sunset together. The last rays of the departing
light streamed upon him, as he sat absorbed in thought; a book
was on his knees; it seemed to have dropt from his hand in the
depth of his abstraction; his faultless features, his
chiselled mouth, the peculiar colour of his hair, and the
light which shed around him a kind of halo, made him at that
moment resemble the pictures of saints which Raphael and
Domenichino have painted.
It seemed to me like a vision; in the highly excited state in
which I then was I almost fancied it such; and the restless
tide of thought within me took a new direction; the tears
sprung into my eyes, and I turned away, wit a softer feeling
at my heart than I had known there for a long while. As I
moved towards the door, the rustling of my gown disturbed
Edward; he called to me to come and admire the glowing colours
of the sky, where clouds over clouds of red and purple hue
were floating in an atmosphere of burnished gold. I went to
him, and we stood together for several minutes, till the sun
descending quite beneath the horizon, left the room in
comparative darkness. I then withdrew, but it was not till I
reached my room that I found I had dropt the paper on which
Henry's verses were written. I felt annoyed at this, and
retraced my steps to the library door, but before I reached
it, I met Edward, and in his hand he held the very paper I was
come in search of. I did not venture to claim it from him, but
he held it out to me at once, and said coldly, "Is this your
property?" I felt confused, neither venturing to deny, or
liking to admit the fact. In my embarrassment I muttered
something about a copy of verses that Henry had written out
for me, and, hastily stretching out my hand for the paper, I
took it, and walked away without further explanation.
On the evening of this day we were all sitting round a table,
on which work, books, and implements for writing were spread
about. Henry Lovell was even more than usually animated, and
spoke well and eloquently on a variety of subjects. Mrs.
Middleton joined eagerly in the conversation; Edward listened
attentively, but spoke seldom. I remember every word he said
that evening. Once Henry requested us all to say what it was
we hated most, and what it was we valued most. I forget what I
said, what he said, what my aunt said, but I know that to the
first question, Edward answered, _duplicity;_ and to the
second, _truth;_ and as he pronounced the word _truth_, he
fixed his eyes upon me, accidentally perhaps, but so sternly
that I quailed under his glance. A few minutes after, Henry
read aloud from a little book that was lying before him, the
following question: "Qu'est-ce que la vie? Quel est son but?
Quelle est sa fin?" "I will write my answer on the margin," he
cried, and wrote, "Jouir et puis mourir;" and then handed the
book to me. I seized the pencil, and hastily added these
words, "Souffrir, et puis mourir." Edward read them, and
looked at me less sternly than before, but with an earnest
inquiring expression of countenance; then lightly drawing a
line with a pencil across the two preceding sentences, he
wrote this one underneath them, "Bien vivre, pour bien
mourir," and gave me back the book.
In general he spoke little; but there was much meaning in what
he said. His reserve gave me a feeling of embarrassment with
him, which, at the time I am writing of, was particularly
irksome. He forced one to _think_, and I preferred dreaming
alone, or drowning thought in talk with Henry. With the latter
I became more intimate than ever: we read together, and it
seemed to me that he always chose such books as excited my
imagination to the utmost, and wrought upon my feelings,
without touching on any of the subjects that would have
painfully affected me. I tried to write too. From my earliest
childhood I had felt great facility in composition, and it was
one of Mrs. Middleton's favourite amusements to look over my
various attempts, and to encourage the talent which she
fancied I possessed; but now I vainly tried to exert it; my
mind was not capable of a continued effort. I believe it is
Madame de Stael who remarks (and how truly) that to write one
must have suffered, and have struggled; one must have been
acquainted with passion and with grief; but they must have
passed away from the soul ere the mind can concentrate its
powers, and bring its energies to bear on the stores which an
experience in suffering has accumulated within us. And it was
this very helplessness of mind, this fever in the intellect,
which threw me, with such fatal dependence, on the resources
which Henry Lovell's conversation and society afforded me. If
he left Elmsley for a single day I felt the want of them so
keenly, that I welcomed him back in a way that may have
deceived others, deceived him, deceived myself perhaps--I know
not--I lived but for excitement, and if the stimulus failed, I
sunk for the time into momentary apathy. We sung together
sometimes, and my voice seemed to have gained strength during
the last few months--the old hall at Elmsley vibrated with the
notes which, with the impetuosity that characterised
everything I did at that time, I threw out with the full
consciousness of power. Often of an evening I sat down at the
organ that was placed in the gallery of the hall, and, forming
various modulations on its deep melodious keys, soothed myself
into a kind of dreamy unconsciousness.
One day I had gone there as usual; it was towards dusk, and I
was just come home from a long ride on a cold December day. I
began playing, but, gradually overcome by drowsiness, I fell
asleep, my hand still on the keys of the organ, and my head
resting against the edge of the high-backed chair I was
sitting on. Whether it was the uneasiness of this posture, or
my damp uncurled hair that was hanging on my face, or else
that in sleep we discern, though it awaken us not, when
something is moving near us, I know not, but my sleep was
painful in the extreme. I felt as if there was a hard
breathing close to me; but, turn which way I would in my
dream, I could see nothing. Then I felt as if some one was
laying hold of me, and I tried to scream, but could not. Then
I seemed suddenly to stand on the steps of the fatal stairs,
(I had often since the day of Julia's death dreamt the fearful
scene over, and the impression which the dreadful reality had
left on my mind was such that I had never since ventured to
stand on that spot,) but now it was not of Julia that I
dreamed. I was being dragged down myself to the bottom of the
precipice, and the person who was forcing me along into the
yawning gulf wore the form of Henry Lovell, and spoke with his
voice. I called to him to stop--I entreated him with frantic
violence to forbear, but just as we were reaching the hollow
he suddenly turned round, and there was Edward Middleton's
face looking ghastly pale, and frowning upon me fearfully. I
fell back, and the movement I must have made at that moment
probably awoke me. I roused myself with that uneasy feeling
which a terrific dream leaves on one's mind, and timidly
looked about me. I was alone; there was the music-book before
me, and the two candles burning as I had left them, but by the
side of one of them was a coarse bit of paper, and on it was
written (oh my God! how fervently I prayed at that moment that
I might yet wake, and find I was still dreaming)--on it was
written in large round letters "BEWARE! I KNOW YOUR SECRET!"
There have been so many dreadful moments in my life, all
turning upon the one event that put the stamp upon it, that I
will not vainly endeavour to describe the misery of each; but
this was one of the worst. I knew not what to think--what to
suspect. Was it indeed some one else, and not Edward Middleton
or Henry Lovell, who had seen the share I had had in Julia's
death? But no, it could not be. No servant of the house was at
hand, no visitor could have been there, for it had been
difficult in the extreme, at the fatal moment, to procure any
help; and every person in the house had accounted for their
absence in some way or other. Why, too, should they have been
silent till now? And this paper, these words, there was no
demand, no extortion in them--a simple intimation.
I remained frightened, bewildered, and wholly unable to rally
against this new source of anxiety. I kept my bed for two
days, confined there by a feverish attack. On the third the
doctor pronounced me better, and able to go into the
drawing-room. As I was lying there on the sofa, my aunt, who
was sitting by me, nursing me as usual with the tenderest
solicitude, said, "I have just received a note from Edward,
which takes me quite by surprise. You know he left us on the
day after the one upon which you were taken ill, to go for a
week or two to London, and now he writes me word that he is
going abroad for a year, and that he will not be able to
return to Elmsley to take leave of us. Such a flighty
proceeding would be very like you, Henry, but I do not
understand it in Edward."
Gone, and for a year! the day after I was taken ill, too!
Quick as lightning a sudden thought Hashed across my mind. I
drew a deep breath, but forced myself to say, "Had he told you
of this plan, Henry?"
"I have had a letter from him also," was his answer; "and I
thought he looked graver than usual."
Later in the afternoon, when we were left alone, became and
sat down by me, and drawing a letter from his pocket, he said,
"Ellen, I wish you to read this letter, and to tell me frankly
what you think of it--I own I do not understand it. He alludes
to some secret, to some sorrow, it would almost seem, that he
cannot disclose, and that has rendered Elmsley unpleasant to
him. There is but one conjecture that I could make; but as
nothing in his manner or in his way of going on corroborates
it, I cannot seriously entertain it, and that is, that he is
in love with you; but you will judge for yourself." Edward's
letter was as follows:--
"My dear Lovell,
"A circumstance which I can neither explain nor dwell upon,
and which had better remain buried in oblivion, has made a
further residence at Elmsley so painful to me, that I have
come to the decision of going abroad immediately, and of
remaining absent for a year at least. To your sister I have
written to announce my intentions, and at the same time to
express my deep sense of her own and my uncle's constant
kindness to me. To you I do not wish to disguise the fact,
that my resolution is not founded on _caprice_,--that I have a
_reason_ for what I do, however unnecessary it is to state
what that reason is. Our friendship makes it incumbent upon me
to be so far explicit; but I beg that you will never allude,
by word or by letter, to the cause of my absence, and that you
will never question me on the subject. I have left in my room
a book which I wish you to give Ellen from me. I dislike
leave-takings, and shall therefore proceed to Dover from
hence, without returning again to Elmsley.
"Sincerely yours,
"Edward Middleton."
It was as I had thought, then. There was the secret I had so
anxiously sought to discover. He, Edward Middleton, was the
possessor of mine! He had never, then, since the day of
Julia's death, looked upon me, or thought of me, but as the
murderer of his little cousin--as a wretch whom nothing but
his forbearance could keep in the house, from which she ought
to have been turned out with horror and execration. He had,
however, forborne to ruin, to destroy me; and a feeling of
tenderness stole over my heart at the thought. But that
paper--that dreadful paper; was that his last farewell to me?
Did he wish to make me feel that I was in his power?--that he
held the sword of vengeance suspended over my head, and that
present, or absent, I was to tremble at his name? This was
unlike Edward Middleton; this was unworthy of him. He should
have come to me and charged me with my crime. He should have
stood before me with that stern commanding brow, and
pronounced my sentence; and I would have knelt to him, and
submitted to any penance, to any expiation he might have
enjoined; but an unsigned, an unavowed threat, a common
anonymous letter--away with it! away with it! Base, miserable
device for him to resort to! My very soul sickened at the
thought; and in the midst of all my other sufferings, I
suffered at feeling how low he had fallen in my estimation.
I was so completely absorbed in these reflections, that I was
only aroused from my abstraction by Henry's asking me, in an
impatient tone, "Well, what do you gather from that letter,
every word of which you seem to have learned by heart?"
"Nothing," I replied, "except that Edward is as
incomprehensible as he is unsatisfactory."
He seemed tolerably satisfied with my answer, and taking away
the letter, did not allude again to the subject, and only sent
me by my maid the book which Edward had desired him to
transmit to me. It was the "Christian Year," that wonderful,
that all but inspired book. I opened it with emotion, and
perhaps it might have made a powerful impression upon me, had
I not found the passages in it which allude to guilt and to
remorse carefully marked with a pencil, and thus, in a manner,
forced on my notice. This seemed to me the sequel of the
menacing words so cruelly addressed to me, and the pride of my
soul--dare I also say, the native integrity of my
character--rose against such a system of secret intimidation.
My heart hardened against the book, and against the giver, and
I thrust it impatiently out of my sight.
Although sick at heart, grieved in spirit, and humbled to the
dust at this solution of the mystery which had hung over me,
yet there was some repose in the degree of security it
afforded against any sudden revolution in my destiny. I was
somewhat calmer, and sometimes, for a few hours together I
shook off the burden from my breast, and, in outward manner at
least, resembled my former self.