by F. Anstey
I knew that consultations and discussions were going on, and that some pressure had been put upon Evelyn to send me home to my family or have me placed in a home where I should be under supervision, though I gathered that she had insisted on my remaining at Tansted for the present.
She was more perfidiously affectionate and attentive than ever; she paid me frequent visits during the day, and studiously avoided any allusion to my outbreak, while my nights were no longer made a misery to me by her secret persecution. I almost began to think that she had relented at last, seeing how completely she had triumphed and how feeble and powerless I had now become, but I deceived myself.
This clemency of hers was only apparent. She knew that I was not strong enough as yet to feel the full effect of her devilish tortures, and she did not intend to lose her victim until she had forced me to witness her final triumph.
On the night before her wedding-day she came to me once more in her bridal attire, so lovely a vision that I was dazzled by her unearthly beauty, but the eyes that gleamed through the transparent veil were as baleful and malignant as of old, and the soft lips dropped an even deadlier venom than before into my poor tortured brain.
For she talked of Hugh; as he was now—self-respecting, wholesome-minded, unsuspicious, hopeful of a long and happy married life with a companion who was his ideal of goodness and loveliness; and what he would become through her—disillusioned, perverted, degraded, loathing his bondage and yet unable to resist her power over his senses, acquiescing sullenly and cynically in his own shame and disgrace. She hated him now, she said, because he had loved me first, and might perhaps come to love me again. But I should never profit by it; after to-morrow he would be hers, and in a very short time I should be a prisoner within the impassable walls of an asylum, with lunatics and idiots for my only companions, and love, happiness, hope shut out of my life for ever. She told me how she would bring Hugh to see me, the wreck of my former self, my mind shattered, my beauty perished, and how he should learn that it was love of him that had made me thus. And she reminded me that I had brought my misery on myself; that if I had only restrained my groundless, morbid jealousy of the girl who was dead, if I had only interfered when there was yet time to prevent her from taking that drug, all would have been different. Instead of the wretched, unloved, conscience-stricken woman I was now, I should be lying peacefully asleep, or waiting in happy wakefulness for the morning to break which would bring my wedding-day.
There was more than this, which I dare not repeat, and nothing I could say would give any impression of the awful wickedness, the ingenuity of cruel invention and suggestion which made these taunts so appalling. I cannot believe that even the guiltiest sinners in hell can be subjected to worse mental torment than she forced me to endure that night. It was terrible to feel that I was the object of such a deliberate and intense hatred.
At last even her malignity exhausted itself for the time, but long after she had left me I lay tossing and writhing under the sting of those poisoned whispers, until it faded out in merciful sleep, and the dream which came to me was not frightful, but tender and pathetic.
I thought that Evelyn—the real Evelyn who was now in Heaven—came and sorrowed over me and comforted me, assuring me that she understood and forgave me, and would willingly help me if she were allowed. I thought she told me not to despair, that evil would not triumph for ever, or perhaps for long, that my term of punishment was drawing to an end.
And I woke crying for joy with the touch of her hair upon my cheeks and the pressure of her loving arm about my neck, and though I knew it was nothing but a dream, it left me strangely strengthened and consoled.
That morning was to see Hugh’s marriage, and yet my heart was lighter than it had been for many a day. I found myself hoping once more.
As the hours passed I heard the bustle of preparation, and knew that Evelyn was being made ready for the ceremony, that she would soon follow her bridesmaids to the church. I believe she actually came in to see me before she left, but I feigned to be asleep, and she went away softly.
Gradually the house became still; most of the servants had probably gone to see their young mistress married; the nurse who attended on me had gone downstairs after locking my door, as if she thought I was likely to make my escape.
It began to strike me that it was a considerable time since I had heard the carriage drive away. Surely before this the wedding bells ought to have pealed out—if nothing had happened to interrupt the marriage.
And all at once I understood what this hope was that had come to me so unaccountably. I knew that it was not without some basis.
There were things that even devils dare not do. I remembered that Evelyn had not attended church for some weeks—not, I was almost sure, since the change. Would she venture now to cross the threshold of God’s house? If not, her terror must betray her as an unholy being, even to the most incredulous. The rector would remember my warning; her spells would be broken.
The church was not so far away but that the bells, when rung, could be distinctly heard across the fields. I went to the window and leaned out, holding my breath and straining my ears in the direction from which the sound should come. I heard nothing but the whirr and click of the reaping machine amongst the corn, the calling of birds, and the lowing of cattle.
I waited until I could doubt no longer. Something had prevented this monstrous marriage. I fell on my knees and thanked God fervently, entreating His pardon for having supposed that He would suffer His temple to be so desecrated.
And, as I rose, there was borne on the breeze, faint but unmistakable, the ripple and clash of wedding bells.
They were married. She had entered God’s house, knelt before His altar, and He had not interposed. Perhaps there was no God, and if there were, it mattered little, for the Devil was master in this miserable world!
The last thing I was conscious of that day was the clang of those triumphant, derisive bells, which seemed to be battering my brains into a throbbing pulp.
IX
There was an interval after that as to which my memory is almost a blank. I can only just recall a long confused nightmare, through which I was making the most superhuman efforts to prevent Hugh’s marriage, pursuing him and Evelyn to the furthest ends of the earth, always on the verge of overtaking them, always hindered by every conceivable obstacle and delay, trying to rouse everyone I met to see Hugh’s danger and help me to avert it, and telling my story over and over again, and then, just as I seemed to have succeeded, hearing those dreadful bells which told me that it was too late.
This must have gone on for some weeks, for when the fever left me, and I was once more able to notice the common things around me, I saw that the roses that I had last seen climbing round my casement had turned to scarlet pods, and the buds were too shrivelled and nipped to unfold themselves. From my window I looked out upon a late autumn landscape of russet and orange, and the lawn was littered with fallen leaves, and the paths white with hoar-frost.
I knew I must have had a long illness but I was too weak and my mind too sluggish as yet to make any effort to remember what had brought it on. I was content for the time to lead a sort of animal existence, and to find a negative comfort and even enjoyment in the little luxuries, the trivial incidents of convalescence.
And then, when it all came back—Evelyn’s death and strange resuscitation, her treachery and malignity, and the arts by which she had beguiled my lover from me—it seemed too fantastic, too unreal to be anything but the perverted imaginings of delirium.
I knew that Hugh and Evelyn were married, but I no longer cared. My passion for Hugh seemed to have burnt itself out; even my terror of Evelyn had left me, or so at least I persuaded myself.
As I grew stronger I asked for news of them, and found that they had already returned from their wedding journey and were now at Laleham Court.
It seemed to me a little strange that Evelyn had not yet come over to see me, and I said as much to Mrs Mai
tland, and told her how I was longing to see her again. This was quite true, for I was anxious to be quite sure that my hallucinations were indeed cured, and I could not be that until I met Evelyn.
Mrs Maitland put me off with palpable excuses. It was better that I should not see Evelyn just yet, until I was perfectly strong and well again.
‘I am almost well now,’ I said. ‘I am quite able to see her, if she cared enough about me to come.’
To this Mrs Maitland replied that Evelyn herself had not been strong enough to go out at all of late.
‘Then let me go and see her,’ I pleaded.
‘Hugh thinks that you had better not meet just yet,’ she said. ‘He is quite distressed about the change in her—it is making him absolutely miserable.’
‘You are keeping something from me,’ I said suddenly. ‘Don’t you see that, unless you want me to be ill again, you had better be quite frank. I have had ideas, strange, horrible fancies, about Evelyn, and they will never quite leave me until I see her again.’
‘My dear,’ she said, ‘1 think I can guess, from certain things you talked of in your delirium, what those ideas are. You seemed to be under the delusion that you had given Evelyn chloral on some occasion, and that she had died of it. Surely you know now that it was all a dream—that nothing of the sort ever happened.’
‘Isn’t it true, then, that you came downstairs that evening last June and asked me if you might give Evelyn a few drops of the chloral you knew I had, and whether it would do her any harm, and that I said it would not. Did I imagine that?’
‘No, my dear, that is all true. I thought she seemed excited and wanted something to make her sleep.’
‘God help me!’ I cried, ‘you have brought it all back. I knew that chloral was dangerous to anyone with a weak heart; I had read it in some medical book, and I let you give it to her, and—ah, I remember now!’
‘You poor thing! and you have been allowing this to prey on you when, if I had only known, I could have relieved your mind at once. Why, my dear, you have nothing to accuse yourself of. The fact is, I never gave Evelyn any chloral at all. When I went into her room she was already dozing, and I waited until she had fallen into a good sound sleep, and then I put out the lights, and came away without even opening the bottle. Luckily, I believe I can prove it.’ She went out and presently returned with a small fluted phial. ‘See, here is the very bottle, with the cover still round the stopper just as it left the chemist. Now, my dear, I hope you realise that you have been tormenting yourself for nothing at all?’
‘If only I had known this at the time!’ I cried. ‘Oh, why—why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Well, Evelyn told you that morning that the bottle was in my keeping, and afterwards she expressly warned me not to mention the subject again in case you might ask me to give it back to you. We both hoped you had forgotten all about it. Of course, dear Evelyn had no more idea than I had that you were brooding over it like this, or we should have put it right at once.’
The good, simple-minded lady was under the impression that she had set my mind entirely at rest, whereas she had only succeeded in convincing me that the thing which I was again beginning to consider a delusion was an awful reality.
What did it signify that the chloral had not been administered? It was none the less true that I had found Evelyn dead the next morning, that in my madness I had invoked some hellish spirit to save me from the consequences of my supposed guilt.
I saw now how I had been tricked and betrayed from the first, how the cunning fiend had used my confession against me, compelling me, in self-protection, to serve her wicked purpose. Perhaps, even if I had known the truth then, and refused to acknowledge her at the first, the result would have been the same, but at least I should have been spared the load of needless guilt and shame, the humiliation of feeling myself indebted to such protection as hers.
Ah! how I hated this merciless devil for all the wanton, unnecessary suffering she had made me endure, and how it maddened me to think of what Hugh Dallas must be going through by this time! If I had been eager to see them before, judge how intensely I desired it now, how I burned to discover for myself how far she had revealed her true nature to him, and how he had been affected by so terrible a disenchantment.
But I have considerable power of self-control when I choose to exercise it, and I knew how necessary it was for his sake to disguise my anxiety. I managed to make Mrs Maitland believe that I had entirely thrown off what she would have considered my ‘delusion.’ Outwardly I was quite calm, and I was soon allowed to come downstairs and resume my share in the quiet, everyday routine of the house, working and reading and walking with Mrs Maitland as I had once done with Evelyn.
I discovered that she and Hugh were living at Laleham Court in the strictest seclusion; no callers had succeeded in seeing her since her return; it was understood that her health was not strong enough to allow her to accept invitations, and he himself was said to be too much concerned about his wife to leave her, except when absolutely compelled by his duties.
To me all this was full of sinister significance, and only heightened the suspense in which I lived; but I bided my time, feeling certain that, sooner or later, Hugh and I would meet, and the first glance at his face would tell me all I longed to know.
And one afternoon I was told that he was in the drawing-room and wished to see me, and though my heart leapt wildly at the news, and my head swam at the thought that I was really to see him at last, really to have an answer to the fear that gave me no rest, I went in and met him with perfect self-possession.
How woefully he had changed; there was a grey pallor on his face that made him look prematurely old and haggard, his eyes had an expression of suppressed despair, his manner was restless and nervous—it was only too plain that already the iron had entered into his soul, and that, if possible, he was as wretched as I!
And yet, stricken and changed as he was, the sight of him revived the old mad passion which I thought was dead. I loved him more intensely and devotedly than ever—I would have died for him willingly if my death could give him back all this fiend had robbed him of!
The beginning of our conversation was commonplace and conventional enough. He said he was glad to find that I had so completely recovered from my illness; I replied that I was perfectly well now, but was sorry to hear such unfavourable accounts of Evelyn.
I watched his face narrowly as I spoke, and saw a spasm come across it at her name.
‘I am unhappy about her,’ he said, ‘more unhappy and anxious every day. I can hardly speak of it.’
‘Do you think I don’t know how terribly you are suffering?’ I said gently. ‘Do you think I don’t feel for you?’
‘God knows it is hard!’ he said with a half groan, ‘when I look back on what she was, and what I hoped she would be, and know what I can’t help knowing, struggle against it as I may. And I am so helpless, so utterly powerless to keep this misery from coming upon me! I can only wait, and feel there is no hope. She talks sometimes as if we were to be together for many years to come, and it is almost more than I can bear. The irony of it all! But I didn’t mean to speak of all this. I—I have a message to you—from her. She is very anxious to see you again. I—I had to promise I would tell you, and bring you back with me, if you feel able to come.’
What new device, I wondered, had she invented to torture me? I could see that he only delivered the message with the greatest reluctance, as if he would have spared me if it had been in his power. ‘I will gladly come,’ I said, ‘if you wish it, if you think I can be of use to you.’
‘I did my best to dissuade her,’ he said. ‘I was afraid of the consequences if I let you see her just now. But she has so set her heart on seeing you that I dared not risk refusing her. And now I have seen you, I can’t think there is any danger. Only, you must promise me that you will say nothing to—to disturb her—above all, you must not let her know that I have spoken to you like this. Can I trust you? Are you qu
ite sure that you can depend on yourself?’
His voice shook with an anxiety he dared not confess in words. I knew well that it was not for himself he feared, and it touched me more than I can say to feel that he could think of me just then.
‘You need not be afraid on my account,’ I said. ‘I can’t explain it, but I feel as if, in some way I don’t understand at present, I shall be able to help you by this meeting—perhaps even free you from this awful shadow that is darkening your life.’
‘It is too late for that,’ he said sadly. ‘When you see her you will understand what little hope there is for me. Can you come with me now? I have the phaeton13 here, and it need not take you very long to get ready.’
In a few minutes more we were in the carriage together on our way to Laleham. Neither of us spoke much, or except on ordinary topics; it seemed as if we both shunned, by common consent, any further reference to the subject that was really engrossing our thoughts.
But to me there was an exquisite, pathetic happiness in being with him, and knowing that, though he could not tell me so in words, he understood me now as he had never done before, that we were drawn to one another by the fellowship of secret suffering. And all the way I was racking my brain to find some means of delivering him. I felt prepared to run any risk, make any sacrifice, if only I could induce the evil spirit to give up her prey; and yet what arguments, or threats or prayers, that I could use would have any effect upon her? I saw how unlikely it was that I could prevail against such an antagonist, but nevertheless I looked forward to the contest without fear, with even a strong hope that I might be enabled to find some vulnerable place in her armour.