“Get up, Mavis!” I cried— “Do not kneel there! Go, — go out of this room, — out of my sight! You do not know what she was — this woman whom I married, — I deemed her an angel, but she was a fiend, — yes, Mavis, a fiend! Look at her, staring at her own image in the glass, — you cannot call her beautiful — now! She smiles, you see, — just as she smiled last night when, ... ah, you know nothing of last night! I tell you, go!” and I stamped my foot almost furiously,— “This air is contaminated, — it will poison you! The perfume of Paris and the effluvia of death intermingled are sufficient to breed a pestilence! Go quickly, — inform the household their mistress is dead, — have the blinds drawn down, — show all the exterior signs of decent and fashionable woe!” — and I began laughing deliriously— “Tell the servants they may count upon expensive mourning, — for all that money can do shall be done in homage to King Death! Let everyone in the place eat and drink as much as they can or will, — and sleep, or chatter as such menials love to do, of hearses, graves and sudden disasters; — but let me be left alone, — alone with her; — we have much to say to one another!”
White and trembling, Mavis rose up and stood gazing at me in fear and pity.
“Alone? ...” she faltered— “You are not fit to be alone!”
“No, I am not fit to be, but I must be,” — I rejoined quickly and harshly— “This woman and I loved — after the manner of brutes, and were wedded or rather mated in a similar manner, though an archbishop blessed the pairing, and called upon Heaven to witness its sanctity! Yet we parted ill friends, — and dead though she is, I choose to pass the night with her, — I shall learn much knowledge from her silence! To-morrow the grave and the servants of the grave may claim her, but to-night she is mine!”
The girl’s sweet eyes brimmed over with tears.
“Oh you are too distracted to know what you are saying,” she murmured— “You do not even try to discover how she died!”
“That is easy enough to guess,” — I answered quickly, and I took up a small dark-coloured bottle labelled ‘Poison’ which I had already perceived on the toilet-table— “This is uncorked and empty. What it contained I do not know, — but there must be an inquest of course, — people must be allowed to make money for themselves out of her ladyship’s rash act! And see there,—” here I pointed to some loose sheets of note-paper covered with writing, and partially concealed by a filmy lace handkerchief which had evidently been hastily thrown across them, and a pen and inkstand close by— “There is some admirable reading prepared for me doubtless! — the last message from the beloved dead is sacred, Mavis Clare; surely you, a writer of tender romances, can realize this! — and realizing it, you will do as I ask you, — leave me!”
She looked at me in deep compassion, and slowly turned to go.
“God help you!” she said sobbingly— “God console you!”
At this, some demon in me broke loose, and springing to her side I caught her hands in mine.
“Do not dare to talk of God!” I said in passionate accents; “Not in this room, — not in that presence! Why should you call curses down upon me? The help of God means punishment, — the consolations of God are terrible! For strength must acknowledge itself weak before He will help it, — and a heart must be broken before He will console it! But what do I say! — I believe in no God — ! I believe in an unknown Force that encompasses me and hunts me down to the grave, but nothing more. She thought as I do, — and with reason, — for what has God done for her? She was made evil from the first, — a born snare of Satan....”
Something caught my breath here, — I stopped, unable to utter another word. Mavis stared at me affrighted, and I stared back again.
“What is it?” she whispered alarmedly. I struggled to speak, — finally, with difficulty I answered her —
“Nothing!”
And I motioned her away with a gesture of entreaty. The expression of my face must have startled or intimidated her I fancy, for she retreated hastily and I watched her disappearing as if she were the phantom of a dream, — then, as she passed out through the boudoir, I drew close the velvet portiére behind her and locked the intermediate door. This done I went slowly back to the side of my dead wife.
397”Now Sibyl,” — I said aloud— “we are alone, you and I — alone with our own reflected images, — you dead, and I living! You have no terrors for me in your present condition, — your beauty has gone. Your smile, your eyes, your touch cannot stir me to a throb of the passion you craved, yet wearied of! What have you to say to me? — I have heard that the dead can speak at times, — and you owe me reparation, — reparation for the wrong you did me, — the lie on which you based our marriage, — the guilt you cherished in your heart! Shall I read your petition for forgiveness here?”
And I gathered up the written sheets of note-paper in one hand, feeling them rather than seeing them, for my eyes were fixed on the pallid corpse in its rose-silk ‘negligée’ and jewels, that gazed at itself so pertinaciously in the shining mirror. I drew a chair close to it, and sat down, observing likewise the reflection of my own haggard face in the glass beside that of the self-murdered woman. Turning presently, I began to scrutinize my immovable companion more closely — and perceived that she was very lightly clothed, — under the silk peignoir there was only a flowing white garment of soft fine material lavishly embroidered, through which the statuesque contour of her rigid limbs could be distinctly seen. Stooping, I felt her heart, — I knew it was pulseless; yet I half imagined I should feel its beat. As I withdrew my hand, something scaly and glistening caught my eye, and looking I perceived Lucio’s marriage-gift circling her waist, — the flexible emerald snake with its diamond crest and ruby eyes. It fascinated me, —— coiled round that dead body it seemed alive and sentient, — if it had lifted its glittering head and hissed at me I should scarcely have been surprised. I sat back for a moment in my chair, almost as rigid as the corpse beside me, — I stared again, as the corpse stared always, into the mirror which pictured us both, we ‘twain in one,’ as the sentimentalists aver of wedded folk, though in truth it often happens that there are no two creatures in the world more widely separated than husband and wife. I heard stealthy movements and suppressed whisperings in the passage outside, and guessed that some of the servants were there watching and waiting, — but I cared nothing for that. I was absorbed in the ghastly night interview I had planned for myself, and I so entered into the spirit of the thing, that I turned on all the electric lamps in the room, besides lighting two tall clusters of shaded candles on either side of the toilet-table. When all the surroundings were thus rendered as brilliant as possible, so that the corpse looked more livid and ghastly by comparison, I seated myself once more, and prepared to read the last message of the dead.
“Now Sibyl,” — I muttered, leaning forward a little, and noting with a morbid interest that the jaws of the corpse had relaxed a little within the last few minutes, and that the smile on the face was therefore more hideous— “Confess your sins! — for I am here to listen. Such dumb, impressive eloquence as yours deserves attention!”
A gust of wind fled round the house with a wailing cry, — the windows shook, and the candles flickered. I waited till every sound had died away, and then — with a glance at my dead wife, under the sudden impression that she had heard what I said, and knew what I was doing, I began to read.
XXXV
Thus ran the ‘last document,’ commencing abruptly and without prefix; —
“I have made up my mind to die. Not out of passion or petulance, — but from deliberate choice, and as I think, necessity. My brain is tired of problems, — my body is tired of life; it is best to make an end. The idea of death, — which means annihilation, — is very sweet to me. I am glad to feel that by my own will and act I can silence this uneasy throbbing of my heart, this turmoil and heat of my blood, — this tortured aching of my nerves. Young as I am, I have no delight now in existence, — I see nothing but my love’s lu
minous eyes, his god-like features, his enthralling smile, — and these are lost to me. For a brief while he has been my world, life and time, — he has gone, — and without him there is no universe. How could I endure the slow, wretched passing of hours, days, weeks, months and years alone? — though it is better to be alone than in the dull companionship of the self-satisfied, complacent and arrogant fool who is my husband. He has left me for ever, so he says in a letter the maid brought to me an hour ago. It is quite what I expected of him, — what man of his type could find pardon for a blow to his own amour propre! If he had studied my nature, entered into my emotions, or striven in the least to guide and sustain me, — if he had shown me any sign of a great, true love such as one sometimes dreams of and seldom finds, — I think I should be sorry for him now, — I should even ask his forgiveness for having married him. But he has treated me precisely as he might treat a paid mistress, — that is, he has fed me, clothed me, and provided me with money and jewels in return for making me the toy of his passions, — but he has not given me one touch of sympathy, — one proof of self-denial or humane forbearance. Therefore, I owe him nothing. And now he, and my love who will not be my lover, have gone away together; I am free to do as I will with this small pulse within me called life, which is after all, only a thread, easily broken. There is no one to say me nay, or to hold my hand back from giving myself the final quietus. It is well I have no friends; it is good for me that I have probed the hypocrisy and social sham of the world, and that I have mastered the following hard truths of life, — that there is no love without lust, — no friendship without self-interest, — no religion without avarice, — and no so-called virtue without its accompanying stronger vice. Who, knowing these things, would care to take part in them! On the verge of the grave I look back along the short vista of my years, and I see myself a child in this very place, this wooded Willowsmere; I can note how that life began to which I am about to put an end. Pampered, petted and spoilt, told that I must ‘look pretty’ and take pleasure in my clothes, I was even at the age of ten, capable of a certain amount of coquetry. Old roués, smelling of wine and tobacco, were eager to take me on their knees and pinch my soft flesh; — they would press my innocent lips with their withered ones, — withered and contaminated by the kisses of cocottes and ‘soiled doves’ of the town! — I have often wondered how it is these men can dare to touch a young child’s mouth, knowing in themselves what beasts they are! I see my nurse, — a trained liar and time-server, giving herself more airs than a queen, and forbidding me to speak to this child or that child, because they were ‘beneath’ me; — then came my governess, full of a prurient prudery, as bad a woman in morals as ever lived, yet ‘highly recommended’ and with excellent references, and wearing an assumption of the strictest virtue, like many equally hypocritical clergymen’s wives I have known. I soon found her out, — for even as a child I was painfully observant, — and the stories she and my mother’s French maid used to tell, in lowered voices now and then broken by coarse laughter, were sufficient to enlighten me as to her true character. Yet, beyond having a supreme contempt for the woman who practised religious austerity outwardly, and was at heart a rake, I gave small consideration to the difficult problem such a nature suggested. I lived, — how strange it seems that I should be writing now of myself, as past and done with! — yes, I lived in a dreamy, more or less idyllic state of mind, thinking without being conscious of thought, full of fancies concerning the flowers, trees and birds, — wishing for things of which I knew nothing, — imagining myself a queen at times, and again, a peasant. I was an omnivorous reader, — and I was specially fond of poetry. I used to pore over the mystic verse of Shelley, and judged him then as a sort of demi-god; — and never, even when I knew all about his life, could I realize him as a man with a thin, shrieking falsetto voice and ‘loose’ notions concerning women. But I am quite sure it was good for his fame that he was drowned in early youth with so many melancholy and dramatic surroundings, — it saved him, I consider, from a possibly vicious and repulsive old age. I adored Keats till I knew he had wasted his passion on a Fanny Brawn, — and then the glamour of him vanished. I can offer no reason for this, — I merely set down the fact. I made a hero of Lord Byron, — in fact he has always formed for me the only heroical type of poet. Strong in himself and pitiless in his love for women, he treated them for the most part as they merited, considering the singular and unworthy specimens of the sex it was his misfortune to encounter. I used to wonder, when reading these men’s amorous lines, whether love would ever come my way, and what beatific state of emotion I should then enjoy. Then came the rough awakening from all my dreams, — childhood melted into womanhood, — and at sixteen I was taken up to town with my parents to “know something of the ways and manners of society,” before finally ‘coming out.’ Oh, those ways and manners! I learnt them to perfection! Astonished at first, then bewildered, and allowed no time to form any judgment on what I saw, I was hurried through a general vague ‘impression’ of things such as I had never imagined or dreamed of. While I was yet lost in wonderment, and kept constantly in companionship with young girls of my own rank and age, who nevertheless seemed much more advanced in knowledge of the world than I, my father suddenly informed me that Willowsmere was lost to us, — that he could not afford to keep it up, — and that we should return there no more. Ah, what tears I shed! — what a fury of grief consumed me! — I did not then comprehend the difficult entanglements of either wealth or poverty; — all I could realize was that the doors of my dear old home were closed upon me for ever. After that, I think I grew cold and hard in disposition; I had never loved my mother very dearly, — in fact I had seen very little of her, as she was always away visiting, if not entertaining visitors, and she seldom had me with her, — so that when she was suddenly struck down by a first shock of paralysis, it affected me but little. She had her doctors and nurses, — I had my governess still with me; and my mother’s sister, Aunt Charlotte, came to keep house for us, — so I began to analyse society for myself, without giving any expression of my opinions on what I observed. I was not yet ‘out,’ but I went everywhere where girls of my age were invited, and perceived things without showing that I had any faculty of perception. I cultivated a passionless and cold exterior, — a listless, uninterested and frigid demeanor, — for I discovered that this was accepted by many people as dullness or stupidity, and that by assuming such a character, certain otherwise crafty persons would talk more readily before me, and betray themselves and their vices unawares. Thus my ‘social education’ began in grim earnest; — women of title and renown would ask me to their ‘quiet teas,’ because I was what they were pleased to call a ‘harmless girl—’ ‘rather pretty, but dull,’ — and allow me to assist them in entertaining the lovers who called upon them while their husbands were out. I remember that on one occasion, a great lady famous for two things, her diamonds and her intimacy with the Queen, kissed her ‘cavaliere servente,’ a noted sporting earl, with considerable abandon in my presence. He muttered something about me, — I heard it; — but his amorous mistress merely answered in a whisper— “Oh, it’s only Sibyl Elton, — she understands nothing.” Afterwards however, when he had gone, she turned to me with a grin and remarked— “You saw me kiss Bertie, didn’t you? I often do; he’s quite like my brother!” I made no reply, — I only smiled vaguely; and the next day she sent me a valuable diamond ring, which I at once returned to her with a prim little note, stating that I was much obliged, but that my father considered me too young as yet to wear diamonds. Why do I think of these trifles now I wonder! — now when I am about to take my leave of life and all its lies! ... There is a little bird singing outside my bedroom window, — such a pretty creature! I suppose it is happy? — it should be, as it is not human... The tears are in my eyes as I listen to its sweet warbling, and think that it will be living and singing still to-day at sunset when I am dead!
· · · · ·
That last sentence was mere s
entiment, for I am not sorry to die. If I felt the least regret about it I should not carry out my intention. I must resume my narrative, — for it is an analysis I am trying to make of myself, to find out if I can whether there are no excuses to be found for my particular disposition, — whether it is not after all, the education and training I have had that have made me what I am, or whether indeed I was born evil from the first. The circumstances that surrounded me, did not, at any rate, tend to soften or improve my character. I had just passed my seventeenth birthday, when one morning my father called me into his library and told me the true position of his affairs. I learned that he was crippled on all sides with debt, — that he lived on advances made to him by Jew usurers, — and that these advances were trusted to him solely on the speculation that I, his only daughter, would make a sufficiently rich marriage to enable him to repay all loans with heavy interest. He went on to say that he hoped I would act sensibly, — and that when any men showed indications of becoming suitors for my hand, I would, before encouraging them, inform him, in order that he might make strict enquiries as to their actual extent of fortune. I then understood, for the first time, that I was for sale. I listened in silence till he had finished, — then I asked him— ‘Love, I suppose, is not to be considered in the matter?’ He laughed, and assured me it was much easier to love a rich man than a poor one, as I would find out after a little experience. He added, with some hesitation, that to help make both ends meet, as the expenses of town life were considerable, he had arranged to take a young American lady under his charge, a Miss Diana Chesney, who wished to be introduced into English society, and who would pay two thousand guineas a year to him for that privilege, and for Aunt Charlotte’s services as chaperône. I do not remember now what I said to him when I heard this, — I know that my long suppressed feelings broke out in a storm of fury, and that for the moment he was completely taken aback by the force of my indignation. An American boarder in our house! — it seemed to me as outrageous and undignified as the conduct of a person I once heard of, who, favoured by the Queen’s patronage with ‘free’ apartments in Kensington Palace, took from time to time on the sly, an American or Colonial ‘paying-guest,’ who adopted forthwith the address of Her Majesty’s birthplace as her own, thus lowering the whole prestige of that historic habitation. My wrath however was useless; — the bargain was arranged, — my father, regardless of his proud lineage and the social dignity of his position, had degraded himself, in my opinion, to the level of a sort of superior lodging-house keeper, — and from that time I lost all my former respect for him. Of course it can be argued that I was wrong, — that I ought to have honoured him for turning his name to monetary account by loaning it out as a protective shield and panoply for an American woman without anything but the dollars of a vulgar ‘railway-king’ to back her up in society, — but I could not see it in that light. I retreated into myself more than ever, — and became more than pleasantly known for my coldness, reserve and hauteur. Miss Chesney came, and strove hard to be my friend, — but she soon found that impossible. She is a good-hearted creature I believe, — but she is badly bred and badly trained as all her compatriots are, more or less, despite their smattering of an European education; I disliked her from the first, and have spared no pains to show it. Yet I know she will be Countess of Elton as soon as it is decently possible, — say, after the year’s ceremonious mourning for my mother has expired, and perhaps three months’ hypocritical wearing of black for me, — my father believes himself to be still young and passably good-looking, and he is quite incapable of resisting the fortune she will bring him. When she took up her fixed abode in our house and Aunt Charlotte became her paid chaperône, I seldom went out to any social gatherings, for I could not endure the idea of being seen in her companionship. I kept to my own room a great deal, and thus secluded, read many books. All the fashionable fiction of the day passed through my hands, much to my gradual enlightenment, if not to my edification. One day, — a day that is stamped on my memory as a kind of turning-point in my life, — I read a novel by a woman which I did not at first entirely understand, — but on going over some of its passages a second time, all at once its horrible lasciviousness flashed upon me, and filled me with such genuine disgust that I flung it on the ground in a fit of loathing and contempt. Yet I had seen it praised in all the leading journals of the day; its obscenities were hinted at as ‘daring,’ — its vulgarities were quoted as ‘brilliant wit,’ — in fact so many laudatory columns were written about it in the press that I resolved to read it again. Encouraged by the ‘literary censors’ of the time, I did so, and little by little the insidious abomination of it filtered into my mind and stayed there. I began to think about it, — and by-and-by found pleasure in thinking about it. I sent for other books by the same tainted hand, and my appetite for that kind of prurient romance grew keener. At this particular juncture as chance or fate would have it, an acquaintance of mine, the daughter of a Marchioness, a girl with large black eyes, and those full protruding lips which remind one unconsciously of a swine’s snout, brought me two or three odd volumes of the poems of Swinburne. Always devoted to poetry, and considering it to be the highest of the arts, and up to that period having been ignorant of this writer’s work, I turned over the books with eagerness, expecting to enjoy the usual sublime emotions which it is the privilege and glory of the poet to inspire in mortals less divinely endowed than himself, and who turn to him
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 364