Chapter VIII
THAT was a very miserable day. I cannot fancy a more uncomfortable position for a stranger than that of being thrust into some distressing family secret, almost immediately after his or her introduction to the family in which it exists. This was just what had happened to me. I was kept one way or the other between those two sisters all the day. Aunt Milly kept continually appealing to me with her eyes, for conversation would not keep up its fluctuating and feeble existence in presence of that figure within the shelter of the screen; and my unlucky position of confidante must have been so apparent that I should not have wondered at any degree of dislike or displeasure which Miss Mortimer could have shown me. She did not show any, however; I could discern no signs of aversion to me. What am I saying? I could discern no signs of any human feeling whatever in her appearance and behaviour that day. My impression was that the sole thing with which her mind was occupied, was the effort to keep her head steady, and overcome the nervous, tremulous motion which agitated her frame. It was a relic, it might be an evidence, of some unseen tempest. But I am firmly convinced that this was the subject of all her thoughts. I watched, I must confess, with intense curiosity, though as quietly as possible, that she might not see I was watching her, every movement she made. But she did not notice me; she scarcely noticed anybody; she was careless of what other people were thinking; what she laboured after, all that miserable, lingering, rainy night was to get the command of herself. She never ventured to unbend her attitude in the slightest degree. She set her teeth together sometimes, and made her face look ghastly; but she could not keep down that external symptom of the trouble or tempest within. Her head kept moving with an incessant tremble; her hands were too much agitated to pursue their work. She kept the knitting-pins in her fingers, and held them rigidly together, as if she were knitting, and sometimes made a few convulsive stitches, and dropt them again, and bent in a tragical dismal confusion over that trifling occupation of hers, which had grown so weird an adjunct of herself to me. I watched her with a certain horror and pity which I cannot describe. It was not her paltry wealth and lands she was defending; it was her honour and her life. There she sat a solitary desperate creature driven to bay, with dear Aunt Milly’s vague terrors and anxieties revolving about her; but conscious in herself of a misery and danger far transcending anything in her innocent sister’s thoughts. Life and honour! but I believed there was no way in this world to defend them but by unnatural falsehood, cruelty, and wrong, and that she did not shrink from these means of upholding herself. Perhaps even a virtuous struggle would have exercised less fascination, than the sight of that desperate guilty secret resistance. I could not keep my eyes from Miss Mortimer. There was something terrible to me in her convulsive efforts after stillness, and in the nervous motion which continually betrayed her, and which no exertions on her part could overcome.
But she sat out all the lengthy lingering hours of that evening, after dinner, for they departed from their usual customs at that time, and dined late out of compliment to Harry. We did try to talk a little, but Aunt Milly’s thoughts were all astray upon one subject, and she was continually breaking off in abrupt conclusions which irresistibly suggested the engrossing matter which she dared not enter upon. Miss Mortimer, meanwhile, attempted to read her Times; but whether it was that the rustle of the paper betrayed the trembling of her hands, or that her mind was unfit for reading anything, she soon laid the paper by, and resumed her pretence of working. You may suppose that Harry and I were not very much at our ease in this strange position of affairs. Almost everything that was said among us suggested a something which could not be said, yet which occupied everybody’s thoughts. Aunt Milly sat flushed and troubled opposite to her sister; her distressed perplexed look, the look of one totally at a loss and unable to offer any explanation even to herself; her glances, sometimes directing me to look at Miss Mortimer, sometimes appealing to me in vain for some suggestion which could throw light upon the subject, were enough of themselves to betray to any stranger the existence of some secret unhappiness in the house. Harry, who was not so much in Aunt Milly’s confidence as I was, kept appealing to me on the other side. What was it all about? I never wished so fervently for the conclusion of a day as I did for that; and yet there must be some extraordinary fascination in watching one’s fellow-creatures. I should not like to get fairly into that dreadful inhuman occupation which people called studying character. But I was so curious about Miss Mortimer that I could almost have liked to follow her to her own room, and watch, when she was no longer on her guard against other people, how she would look and what she would do. Would she faint, or cry out, or dash herself against the floor? or was she so accustomed to that dreadful secresy that she would not betray herself even to herself? She must have lived that dreadful hidden life, and locked up all she knew in her own breast for a lifetime; for a longer lifetime than mine.
“I wonder,” said Henry, when we were alone that evening, “what sort of a person this Miss Mortimer is. Something’s wrong clearly. I suspect there must be something in the old lady’s life which will not bear the light of day.”
“What makes you think so?” said I.
“The t’other old lady and you play into each other’s hands,” cried Harry; “you know more about it than you choose to tell. But of course you are right enough if it is somebody else’s secret; only recollect, Milly, I am very glad you should be an heiress; I am extremely glad you will have a house to receive you while I am away, and that come what may, that little beggar is provided for; but look here, if there’s another relation nearer than you, legitimate or illegitimate, I won’t stand by and see him wronged.”
“Harry, tell me what you mean,” cried I.
Harry looked at me a little indignantly; he thought I knew more than he did, and was trifling with him. “Milly, who is that fellow Luigi?” he said at last.
“I make dreadful guesses,” said I, “but I cannot tell. Aunt Milly knows nothing about him. The only idea she can form is that he may be her father’s son.”
Harry gave a long, half amazed, incredulous whistle, and turned away. He could scarcely believe me. Then I told him all I had heard, and something of what I had guessed. We did not converse plainly about this guess, which he had evidently jumped at as well as myself. A secret held with such dreadful tenacity was not a thing to be lightly discussed; but we both felt the same on the subject, only Harry’s mind took a more charitable view of it than I did. They say we are always harder on guilty women than men are; perhaps it is natural. I felt an abhorrence rise within me which I could neither overcome nor disguise at the idea of a woman, and especially a woman in such a position as Miss Mortimer, having lived a pretended life of honour and innocence all these years, with that guilt in her mind which nobody knew but she; and now of her sacrificing and disowning nature to keep up that dreadful sham. I can understand people meeting death rather than disgrace; that is, I mean I could understand how one would rather hear that those whom one loves should die than disgrace themselves; but I don’t understand an insane struggle against the disgrace which one has deserved. That is not a noble struggle, so far as I can see; the only way of existing through such dreadful circumstances would be by enduring it; and all the same whether it was a woman or a man. I do think it is a shame to speak as some people speak on this subject, as if the disgrace were all; as if all the harm was not done when the wrong was done, whether disgrace came or no!
“I’ll tell you what, Milly,” said Harry, “I must say I think it’s very hard the poor old lady should lose her good name for something that happened an age ago. No doubt, by what we saw to-day, she must have set her poor old heart upon resisting and denying it, as foolish people always try to do. Now, you know, that’s evidently of no use. Of course a mere statement of any such claim having been made, is enough to finish Miss Mortimer, with all the gossips of the county, whether it was proved or not. Now I shan’t be here for long, and as they seem disposed to be so very kind to you–”
“Don’t, Harry!”
“But I must,” said he. “It will be no end of consolation to me to think of you in these pretty rooms which Miss Milly has already prepared for you. If I can do them a good turn before I go, I will, you may depend upon it. As soon as we return to Chester I’ll see Luigi; and if it can be got out of him what he wants, I shall certainly make an effort to have him satisfied, and Miss Mortimer left unmolested. It would not do if sins of thirty years standing were to be brought against people in this way. Why, anybody might be thrown into sudden shame on such a principle; and you women, you know, are so vindictive and all that–”
“Oh, yes! I know,” said I, “and will always be vindictive all the same. Imagine this woman standing side by side with Aunt Milly, and considered as spotless as she; imagine such a long cruel abominable sin, and no retribution overtaking it! Oh, you may be pitiful if you like, but it disgusts me.”
Harry laughed. “I should be surprised if it did not disgust you, Milly darling,” he said, “but poetic justice is exploded now-a-days. I don’t suppose Luigi can be very anxious for her personal affection, considering how she seems to have behaved; and, indeed, to be sure he would be fully more disgraced than she. How many days are we to be here? I shall see him whenever we return to Chester.”
“Three days longer,” said I, with a sigh. “Somehow this little visit to the Park had come to look like a little barrier between me and what was coming. Presently we should go back to Chester, and then–”
Harry understood my sigh. He repeated the very words I was saying in my mind. “And then–” said Harry, “and then, darling, to see which of us two is bravest! But it will come hardest upon you, my poor little wife.”
“Harry,” cried I, “don’t speak!” and I went away, and would have no more of such talk. It was enough that it was coming; it would be enough when it came.
Perhaps the last few words of this conversation were not the best preparation possible for sleep. I know I awoke a great many times during that long dark night, and once in its deepest darkness and stillness I fancied I heard a groan faintly sounding through the wall. Miss Mortimer’s rooms were near ours. This sound set all my imagination busy again. It was she who groaned under that veil of night. She, so dreadfully on her guard all day long, who relieved her miserable heart thus when nobody watched her. It was impossible not to feel excited in the neighbourhood of such mysterious secrecy. The sound of that groan moved me to pity;—she had not escaped without retribution. Was not that dread of the consequences under which she was suffering, worse than the very hardest shape the consequences were likely to assume, if they themselves ever overtook the sinner?
Chapter IX
THE next day began much like the previous day; it was still showery and damp; and though Harry was out of doors I was prevented, by Aunt Milly’s care, from joining him. In the afternoon we were to go out with her on a round of inspection to see the neighbourhood, Miss Mortimer having volunteered to give up the carriage to us for that purpose, though it was the day on which she generally took her drive; and the rector and some other near neighbours were to come to dinner in the evening. I was once more alone with Miss Mortimer. We sat much as we had done on the previous day, opposite each other, the moments passing over us in a certain excited silence. She did not say anything to me; she did not even look at me. She showed none of that voiceless anxiety to know who had come in when the door opened, which struck me before. She was much calmed down; the person she expected had come; the blow, whatever it was, had been borne; and for the present moment there was an end of it. She actually knitted her pattern correctly, and counted her stitches, and referred to her book to see if she was correct, as she sat there before me in her inhuman calm. Was she a creature of flesh and blood, after all? or a witch, like those of the old stories, without any human motives in her heart of stone?
I could not help thinking so as I sat beside her. Her head still trembled slightly; but I suppose that was an habitual motion. She sat there shut up in herself,—her misery and her relief, and the cold dauntless spirit that must have risen from that smart encounter yesterday, and gained strength by the very struggle—hidden from everybody round her, as if they had been a world away. I gazed and wondered, almost trembled, at that extraordinary death in life. She who had all the tumult of passion and guilt in her memory; she who must have entered into the fullest excitement of life, and got entangled in its most dreadful perplexities; she who was no ascetic, nor even pretended to that rival excitement of the devotee which might have replaced the other; how could she have lived silent and obdurate through those dreadful years? The very thought of them struck me aghast. After her life of flattery, admiration, and universal homage; after her experience, whatever that might be, of more personal passions, to drop for a longer time than my whole life behind that screen into that chair! As I sat opposite to her, my thoughts turned back to that other Miss Mortimer, whom I had placed in imagination in my grandfather’s house. Once more I thought I could see that large low room which I never had seen, except in fancy, with the ancient beauty sitting silent by the fire amid the ghosts of the past. Was this the true impersonation of that dream of mine? Was this the Miss Mortimer, with her foreign count, whom Mrs. Saltoun remembered? As this recurred to me I could scarcely help a little start of quickened curiosity and eagerness. It seemed to flicker before me as a possible interpretation of all this dark enigma, could only the connecting link be found. As I was wandering deeper and deeper into these thoughts—so deep as to forget the strange position I stood in, and the possibility of being taken for a kind of domestic spy, which had embarrassed me at first—I heard a little commotion outside. The door, perhaps, was ajar, or it might be simply that my ears were quickened by hearing a little cry from baby, and Lizzie’s voice belligerent and full of determination. I got up hastily and went to the door. I don’t think Miss Mortimer even lifted her eyes to notice my movement. It was certainly Lizzie in some conflict with one of the authorities of the house; and Lizzie, as the natural and primitive method of asserting her own way, had unconsciously elevated her voice; a proceeding which alarmed baby, and also, as it appeared, her antagonist. I ran and threw the door open as I heard another cry from my little boy. There, outside, was a curious scene. Lizzie, in her out-of-doors dress, just returned from a walk in the garden with baby, with her face a little flushed, and her plentiful hair somewhat blown about by the wind, was resolutely pressing forward to enter the drawing-room, where, to be sure, she had no business to come; while holding her back by her cloak, and whispering threats and dissuasions, was a person whom I had scarcely seen before, but whom I knew at once to be Carson, Miss Mortimer’s maid. Lizzie was greatly excited; and what with managing the baby and resisting this woman, while at the same time possessed with some mission which she was evidently determined to perform, looked fatigued and exhausted too.
“But I will,” cried Lizzie, with her eyes flashing. “I’m no heeding whether it’s my place or no. I promised I would gi’e it into her ain very hand; and do ye think I’m gaun back o’ my word? I tell ye I will gie’t to the leddy mysel’. Eh, mem!” she exclaimed, breathlessly, with a sudden change of her tone as she saw me, “I met Menico at the gate, and I promised to gi’e it into the leddy’s ain hand.”
When I approached, Carson fell back; she shrank, I could fancy, from meeting my eyes. Her hand dropped from Lizzie’s cloak; she was as much afraid to be supposed to interfere as she was anxious to interfere in reality.
“My missis’s nerves, ma’am,” said Carson, glibly, but in a half whisper, “is not as strong as might be wished. If the young person, ma’am, would give it to me, or–. You see the ladies at the Park they’re known for charity, and beggars’ letters, or such like, they’re too excitin’ for my missis’; they puts her all in a tremble—it’s on her nerves.”
“But, mem,” cried Lizzie, “I canna go back o’ my word.”
I stood between them, much perplexed and bewildered. The anxiety of Miss Mortimer’s maid was evident; and Lizzie, from whose arms baby had instantly struggled as soon as he saw me, was greatly excited. At this moment she produced the letter which was in question. Carson made a stealthy spring to seize it, but recollecting herself, drew back, and looked up guilty, but deprecating in my face. I don’t know whether it was a desire to clear up the mystery, or the cruel curiosity of an observer of character that decided me. I dismissed Carson coldly, saying I would ring if Miss Mortimer wanted her, and told Lizzie to follow me into the room. Lizzie’s excitement sank into awe as she trod softly through this great, faded, magnificent apartment. Before she reached the screen which sheltered Miss Mortimer, she was almost speechless with half superstitious reverence. I am sure she would willingly have given her letter to Carson or anybody at that moment. The very fact that the person she was about to confront was thus concealed from her overawed her simple mind. When she actually emerged from behind the screen, and came in full sight of Miss Mortimer, Lizzie’s healthful face was perfectly colourless, and her frame trembling. The supreme awkwardness of the attitude into which she fell, the spasmodic rudeness with which she thrust out that hand that contained the letter, the fright and consternation visible in every twist of her person, would have been painfully ludicrous if there had been any time to observe it. Miss Mortimer raised her eyes and stared at the strange figure before her. Almost absurd as that figure was in its dismay and terror, her mind was not sufficiently at ease to be simply surprised. Any strange apparition had a right to appear before this woman in her intrenchments of dumb resistance. As I stood by looking on, I could understand the feeling which worked in her eyes. She was not surprised. No miracle could have surprised her. She was rather asking in her heart, “Who is this new assailant? Who will come next?”
“If ye please, it’s a letter,” said Lizzie, in a tremulous voice.
Miss Mortimer made no attempt to take the letter. She said, “Who are you?” with a strange curiosity; as if, amid all the powers that had a secret right to assail her in her conscious guiltiness, this was a new hobgoblin whom she could not well connect with the others. If there were any purgatory, I could fancy a poor soul there asking in the same tone the name of the new imp who came to torment it.
This was more than Lizzie could bear. I don’t know what perplexed terrors and superstitious ideas of evil influence brought back the blood to her cheeks. She trembled all over under that eye, which had suggested the idea of the Evil Eye to Lizzie, and to which she was determined never to expose “our bairn.” She must have endured a kind of martyrdom as she stood under its steady gaze. “Eh, me? I’m no onybody,” cried Lizzie, shivering with excitement; “it’s just a letter. I said I would gi’e it into the leddy’s own hand.”
Miss Mortimer turned upon me—on the child—on the very mirror on the further wall, a look of silent defiance; she seemed to look round to call upon the very apartment in which we sat to witness what she did. Then she took the letter from Lizzie’s rigid fingers, and with scarcely a motion, except of her hand, dropped it into the fire. After she had done it, she turned again to us with another steady look, and even with a smile; triumphant!—with a certain gleam of devilish satisfaction in her success, as if she had baffled us all once more. But in that very moment, while she still smiled, I could see her hold herself fast between the arms of her chair, to keep down the nervous tremor which seized her. That resisting, defying spirit was lodged in nothing stronger than a human frame. Her head shook, steadied, trembled again, with a force beyond all her power of control. With all that soul of successful evil in her face, her head shook as if with the palsy of extreme old age, and in spite of the most convulsive strenuous efforts to keep it still. I was nearly as much awe-struck as Lizzie. I stole out of sight of her as the girl did. Never was there such a picture! She could conquer nature, truth, and every human feeling; but she could not conquer those tremulous chords and threads of mortal flesh which refused to be in the conspiracy. She sat there dumbly defying every scrutiny, but with the smile growing fixed and ghastly on her face as she tried, with her utmost desperate feeble strength, and failed, to defy and overcome herself.
I asked Lizzie no questions as she came upstairs after me. I did not say anything to her when I heard her sobbing out her agitation in her own room. There was not a word said between us when she came refreshed by that little ebullition, and by the necessary arrangement of her wind-blown hair and dress, to take charge of little Harry. When I had given the child up to her, I went downstairs again, quite silent and eager. You may very well ask why. I cannot defend myself. I went down with no better motive than to watch Miss Mortimer, and see if anything more could be found out.
When I went into the room I saw nobody, but heard some voices and movement behind the screen. I believe if Miss Mortimer had been speaking in the ordinary human voice, I should not have heard her at that distance; but I did hear that strange stifled whisper almost as well as if it had been hissed into my ear.
“I must deny, deny, deny,” said the strange voice. “Don’t speak to me, you know nothing about it. It is the only strength I have.”
“But, oh! dear, dear, such a pretty young gentleman!” said the other speaker, in a tone of weeping but hopeless remonstrance.
“Let him prove his rights,” said Miss Mortimer.
I obeyed my instincts, and fled out of the room as I heard that she was stirring behind the screen. And I had not been mistaken in the guess I made. She came out a few minutes later, leaning on Carson’s arm, leaning heavily, with her head trembling like that of a palsied person; but her eyes full of that dreadful self-possession, knowledge and resistance. I trembled, too, as I stood aside to let her pass. She did not say anything, though she stared hard at me. The maid, though she did her best to make up her usual face when she saw me there, was evidently overpowered with anxiety and distress.
There was, then, one other individual who knew that secret—one creature who loved that dreadful old woman, and in whom she trusted. I could not help standing still to look after them as they went upstairs. Carson was very little younger than her mistress. She had a naturally anxious look, as well she might if she had been for years the depository of this secret. I could not help picturing their life to myself as they went upstairs: the innocent woman troubled and tearful, the guilty woman calm and immovable, but for that trembling of her frame which even her remorseless will was not strong enough to subdue. I could understand better now how she kept alive, and could preserve that frightful stillness of hers. Upstairs, in their own apartments, no doubt another life went on; a life of recollections and schemes which no one knew of, a life palpitating full of those past years of which Miss Mortimer gave no sign. That was how she kept herself alive. I could not do anything but stand still, watching them, as they went slowly up to that retirement, where the mask could be laid off and the veil drawn. When they were out of sight, I strayed into the great vacant drawing-room, unable to withdraw my thoughts from this strange pair. “I must deny, deny, deny!” That was the position she had taken. Could any one in existence—could Luigi, a sensitive and high-minded young man as he seemed to be—seek motherly love from such a woman as this? Motherly love! it was dreadful even in thought to apply such words to anything that could come from her. Shame only, shame to both. What motive could he have to go on seeking her? for Nature had evidently no place in her heart of stone.