The Legacy of Cain Read online

black letters help me? Where can I find something consoling to write down?

  Where? Where?

  Selina--poor Selina, so fond of me, so sorry for me. When I was happy, she was

  happy, too. It was always amusing to hear her talk. Oh, my memory, be good to

  me! Save me from Philip and Helena. I want to remember the pleasant days when my

  kind little friend and I used to gossip in the garden.

  No: the days in the garden won't come back. What else can I think of?

  . . . . . . .

  The recollections that I try to encourage keep away from me. The other

  recollections that I dread, come crowding back. Still Philip! Still Helena!

  But Selina mixes herself up with them. Let me try again if I can think of

  Selina.

  How delightfully good to me and patient with me she was, on our dismal way home

  from the park! And how affectionately she excused herself for not having warned

  me of it, when she first suspected that my own sister and my worst enemy were

  one and the same!

  "I know I was wrong, my dear, to let my love and pity close my lips. But

  remember how happy you were at the time. The thought of making you miserable was

  more than I could endure--I am so fond of you! Yes; I began to suspect them, on

  the day when they first met at the station. And, I am afraid, I thought it just

  likely that you might be as cunning as I was, and have noticed them, too."

  Oh, how ignorant she must have been of my true thoughts and feelings! How

  strangely people seem to misunderstand their dearest friends! knowing, as I did,

  that I could never love any man but Philip, could I be wicked enough to suppose

  that Philip would love any woman but me?

  I explained to Selina how he had spoken to me, when we were walking together on

  the bank of the river. Shall I ever forget those exquisite words? "I wish I was

  a better man, Eunice; I wish I was good enough to be worthy of you." I asked

  Selina if she thought he was deceiving me when he said that. She comforted me by

  owning that he must have been in earnest, at the time--and then she distressed

  me by giving the reason why.

  "My love, you must have innocently said something to him, when you and he were

  alone, which touched his conscience (when he had a conscience), and made him

  ashamed of himself. Ah, you were too fond of him to see how he changed for the

  worse, when your vile sister joined you, and took possession of him again. It

  made my heart ache to see you so unsuspicious of them. You asked me, my poor

  dear, if they had quarreled--you believed they were tired of walking by the

  river, when it was you they were tired of--and you wondered why Helena took him

  to see the school. My child! she was the leading spirit at the school, and you

  were nobody. Her vanity saw the chance of making him compare you at a

  disadvantage with your clever sister. I declare, Euneece, I lose my head if I

  only think of it! All the strong points in my character seem to slip away from

  me. Would you believe it?--I have neglected that sweet infant at the cottage; I

  have even let Mrs. Molly have her baby back again. If I had the making of the

  laws, Philip Dunboyne and Helena Gracedieu should be hanged together on the same

  gallows. I see I shock you. Don't let us talk of it! Oh, don't let us talk of

  it!"

  And here am I writing of it! What I had determined not to do, is what I have

  done. Am I losing my senses already? The very names that I was most anxious to

  keep out of my memory stare me in the face in the lines that I have just

  written. Philip again! Helena again!

  . . . . . . .

  Another day, and something new that must and will be remembered, shrink from it

  as I may. This afternoon, I met Helena on the stairs.

  She stopped, and eyed me with a wicked smile; she held out her hand. "We are

  likely to meet often, while we are in the same house," she said; "hadn't we

  better consult appearances, and pretend to be as fond of each other as ever?"

  I took no notice of her hand; I took no notice of her shameless proposal. She

  tried again: "After all, it isn't my fault if Philip likes me better than he

  likes you. Don't you see that?" I still refused to speak to her. She still

  persisted. "How black you look, Eunice! Are you sorry you didn't kill me, when

  you had your hands on my throat?"

  I said: "Yes."

  She laughed, and left me. I was obliged to sit down on the stair--I trembled so.

  My own reply frightened me. I tried to find out why I had said Yes. I don't

  remember being conscious of meaning anything. It was as if somebody else had

  said Yes--not I. Perhaps I was provoked, and the word escaped me before I could

  stop it. Could I have stopped it? I don't know.

  . . . . . . .

  Another sleepless night.

  Did I pass the miserable hours in writing letters to Philip and then tearing

  them up? Or did I only fancy that I wrote to him? I have just looked at the

  fireplace. The torn paper in it tells me that I did write. Why did I destroy my

  letters? I might have sent one of them to Philip. After what has happened? Oh,

  no! no!

  Having been many days away from the Girls' Scripture Class, it seemed to be

  possible that going back to the school and the teaching might help me to escape

  from myself.

  Nothing succeeds with me. I found it impossible to instruct the girls as usual;

  their stupidity soon reached the limit of my patience--suffocated me with rage.

  One of them, a poor, fat, feeble creature, began to cry when I scolded her. I

  looked with envy at the tears rolling over her big round cheeks. If I could only

  cry, I might perhaps bear my hard fate with submission.

  I walked toward home by a roundabout way; feeling as if want of sleep was

  killing me by inches.

  In the High Street, I saw Helena; she was posting a letter, and was not aware

  that I was near her. Leaving the post-office, she crossed the street, and

  narrowly escaped being run over. Suppose the threatened accident had really

  taken place--how should I have felt, if it had ended fatally? What a fool I am

  to be putting questions to myself about things that have not happened!

  The walking tired me; I went straight home.

  Before I could ring the bell, the house door opened, and the doctor came out. He

  stopped to speak to me. While I had been away (he said), something had happened

  at home (he neither knew nor wished to know what) which had thrown my father

  into a state of violent agitation. The doctor had administered composing

  medicine. "My patient is asleep now," he told me; "but remember what I said to

  you the last time we met; a longer rest than any doctor's prescription can give

  him is what he wants. You are not looking well yourself, my dear. What is the

  matter?"

  I told him of my wretched restless nights; and asked if I might take some of the

  composing medicine which he had given to my father. He forbade me to touch a

  drop of it. "What is physic for your father, you foolish child, is not physic

  for a young creature like you," he said. "Count a thousand, if you can't sleep

  to-night, or turn your pillow. I wish you pleasant dreams." He went a
way, amused

  at his own humor.

  I found Selina waiting to speak with me, on the subject of poor papa.

  She had been startled on hearing his voice, loud in anger. In the fear that

  something serious had happened, she left her room to make inquiries, and saw

  Helena on the landing of the flight of stairs beneath, leaving the study. After

  waiting till my sister was out of the way, Selina ventured to present herself at

  the study door, and to ask if she could be of any use. My father, walking

  excitedly up and down the room, declared that both his daughters had behaved

  infamously, and that he would not suffer them to speak to him again until they

  had come to their senses, on the subject of Mr. Dunboyne. He would enter into no

  further explanation; and he had ordered, rather than requested, Selina to leave

  him. Having obeyed, she tried next to find me, and had just looked into the

  dining-room to see if I was there, when she was frightened by the sound of a

  fall in the room above--that is to say, in the study. Running upstairs again,

  she had found him insensible on the floor and had sent for the doctor.

  "And mind this," Selina continued, "the person who has done the mischief is the

  person whom I saw leaving the study. What your unnatural sister said to provoke

  her father--"

  "That your unnatural sister will tell you herself," Helena's voice added. She

  had opened the door while we were too much absorbed in our talk to hear her.

  Selina attempted to leave the room. I caught her by the hand, and held her back.

  I was afraid of what I might do if she left me by myself. Never have I felt

  anything like the rage that tortured me, when I saw Helena looking at us with

  the same wicked smile on her lips that had insulted me when we met on the

  stairs. Have we anything to be ashamed of?" I said to Selina. "Stay where you

  are."

  "You may be of some use, Miss Jillgall, if you stay," my sister suggested.

  "Eunice seems to be trembling. Is she angry, or is she ill?"

  The sting of this was in the tone of her voice. It was the hardest thing I ever

  had to do in my life--but I did succeed in controlling myself.

  "Go on with what you have to say," I answered, "and don't notice me."

  "You are not very polite, my dear, but I can make allowances. Oh, come! come!

  putting up your hands to stop your ears is too childish. You would do better to

  express regret for having misled your father. Yes! you did mislead him. Only a

  few days since, you left him to suppose that you were engaged to Philip. It

  became my duty, after that, to open his eyes to the truth; and if I unhappily

  provoked him, it was your fault. I was strictly careful in the language I used.

  I said: 'Dear father, you have been misinformed on a very serious subject. The

  only marriage engagement for which your kind sanction is requested, is my

  engagement. I have consented to become Mrs. Philip Dunboyne.' "

  "Stop!" I said.

  "Why am I to stop?"

  "Because I have something to say. You and I are looking at each other. Does my

  face tell you what is passing in my mind?"

  "Your face seems to be paler than usual," she answered--"that's all."

  "No," I said; "that is not all. The devil that possessed me, when I discovered

  you with Philip, is not cast out of me yet. Silence the sneering devil that is

  in You, or we may both live to regret it."

  Whether I did or did not frighten her, I cannot say. This only I know--she

  turned away silently to the door, and went out.

  I dropped on the sofa. That horrid hungering for revenge, which I felt for the

  first time when I knew how Helena had wronged me, began to degrade and tempt me

  again. In the effort to get away from this new evil self of mine, I tried to

  find sympathy in Selina, and called to her to come and sit by me. She seemed to

  be startled when I looked at her, but she recovered herself, and came to me, and

  took my hand.

  "I wish I could comfort you!" she said, in her kind simple way.

  "Keep my hand in your hand," I told her; "I am drowning in dark water--and I

  have nothing to hold by but you."

  "Oh, my darling, don't talk in that way!"

  "Good Selina! dear Selina! You shall talk to Me. Say something harmless--tell me

  a melancholy story--try to make me cry."

  My poor little friend looked sadly bewildered.

  "I'm more likely to cry myself," she said. "This is so heart-breaking--I almost

  wish I was back in the time, before you came home, the time when your detestable

  sister first showed how she hated me. I was happy, meanly happy, in the spiteful

  enjoyment of provoking her. Oh, Euneece, I shall never recover my spirits again!

  All the pity in the world would not be pity enough for you. So hardly treated!

  so young! so forlorn! Your good father too ill to help you; your poor mother--"

  I interrupted her; she had interested me in something better than my own

  wretched self. I asked directly if she had known my mother.

  "My dear child, I never even saw her!"

  "Has my father never spoken to you about her?"

  "Only once, when I asked him how long she had been dead. He told me you lost her

  while you were an infant, and he told me no more. I was looking at her portrait

  in the study, only yesterday. I think it must be a bad portrait; your mother's

  face disappoints me."

  I had arrived at the same conclusion years since. But I shrank from confessing

  it.

  "At any rate," Selina continued, "you are not like her. Nobody would ever guess

  that you were the child of that lady, with the long slanting forehead and the

  restless look in her eyes."

  What Selina had said of me and my mother's portrait, other friends had said.

  There was nothing that I know of to interest me in hearing it repeated--and yet

  it set me pondering on the want of resemblance between my mother's face and

  mine, and wondering (not for the first time) what sort of woman my mother was.

  When my father speaks of her, no words of praise that he can utter seem to be

  good enough for her. Oh, me, I wish I was a little more like my mother!

  It began to get dark; Maria brought in the lamp. The sudden brightness of the

  flame struck my aching eyes, as if it had been a blow from a knife. I was

  obliged to hide my face in my handkerchief. Compassionate Selina entreated me to

  go to bed. "Rest your poor eyes, my child, and your weary head--and try at least

  to get some sleep." She found me very docile; I kissed her, and said good-night.

  I had my own idea.

  When all was quiet in the house, I stole out into the passage and listened at

  the door of my father's room.

  I heard his regular breathing, and opened the door and went in. The composing

  medicine, of which I was in search, was not on the table by his bedside. I found

  it in the cupboard--perhaps placed purposely out of his reach. They say that

  some physic is poison, if you take too much of it. The label on the bottle told

  me what the dose was. I dropped it into the medicine glass, and swallowed it,

  and went back to my father.

  Very gently, so as not to wake him, I touched poor papa's forehead with my lips.


  "I must have some of your medicine," I whispered to him; "I want it, dear, as

  badly as you do."

  Then I returned to my own room--and lay down in bed, waiting to be composed.

  CHAPTER XXXI.

  EUNICE'S DIARY.

  My restless nights are passed in Selina's room.

  Her bed remains near the window. My bed has been placed opposite, near the door.

  Our night-light is hidden in a corner, so that the faint glow of it is all that

  we see. What trifles these are to write about! But they mix themselves up with

  what I am determined to set down in my Journal, and then to close the book for

  good and all.

  I had not disturbed my little friend's enviable repose, either when I left our

  bed-chamber, or when I returned to it. The night was quiet, and the stars were

  out. Nothing moved but the throbbing at my temples. The lights and shadows in

  our half-darkened room, which at other times suggest strange resemblances to my

  fancy, failed to disturb me now. I was in a darkness of my own making, having

  bound a handkerchief, cooled with water, over my hot eyes. There was nothing to

  interfere with the soothing influence of the dose that I had taken, if my

  father's medicine would only help me.

  I began badly. The clock in the hall struck the quarter past the hour, the

  half-past, the three-quarters past, the new hour. Time was awake--and I was

  awake with Time.

  It was such a trial to my patience that I thought of going back to my father's

  room, and taking a second dose of the medicine, no matter what the risk might

  be. On attempting to get up, I became aware of a change in me. There was a dull

  sensation in my limbs which seemed to bind them down on the bed. It was the

  strangest feeling. My will said, Get up--and my heavy limbs said, No.

  I lay quite still, thinking desperate thoughts, and getting nearer and nearer to

  the end that I had been dreading for so many days past. Having been as well

  educated as most girls, my lessons in history had made me acquainted with

  assassination and murder. Horrors which I had recoiled from reading in past

  happy days, now returned to my memory; and, this time, they interested instead

  of revolting me. I counted the three first ways of killing as I happened to

  remember them, in my books of instruction:--a way by stabbing; a way by poison;

  a way in a bed, by suffocation with a pillow. On that dreadful night, I never

  once called to mind what I find myself remembering now--the harmless past time,

  when our friends used to say: "Eunice is a good girl; we are all fond of

  Eunice." Shall I ever be the same lovable creature again?

  While I lay thinking, a strange thing happened. Philip, who had haunted me for

  days and nights together, vanished out of my thoughts. My memory of the love

  which had begun so brightly, and had ended so miserably, became a blank. Nothing

  was left but my own horrid visions of vengeance and death.

  For a while, the strokes of the clock still reached my ears. But it was an

  effort to count them; I ended in letting them pass unheeded. Soon afterward, the

  round of my thoughts began to circle slowly and more slowly. The strokes of the

  clock died out. The round of my thoughts stopped.

  All this time, my eyes were still covered by the handkerchief which I had laid

  over them.

  The darkness began to weigh on my spirits, and to fill me with distrust. I found

  myself suspecting that there was some change--perhaps an unearthly

  change--passing over the room. To remain blindfolded any longer was more than I

  could endure. I lifted my hand--without being conscious of the heavy sensation

  which, some time before, had laid my limbs helpless on the bed--I lifted my

  hand, and drew the handkerchief away from my eyes.

  The faint glow of the night-light was extinguished.

  But the room was not quite dark. There was a ghastly light trembling over it;

  like nothing that I have ever seen by day; like nothing that I have ever seen by

  night. I dimly discerned Selina's bed, and the frame of the window, and the

  curtains on either side of it--but not the starlight, and not the shadowy tops