The Legacy of Cain Page 21

name?"

  "In the case of any one else in your position, Miss Helena, I should venture to

  call it bad taste."

  I was provoked into saying that. It failed entirely as a well-meant effort in

  the way of implied reproof. Miss Helena smiled.

  "You grant me a liberty which you would not concede to another girl." That was

  how she viewed it. "We are getting on better already. To return to what I was

  saying. When Philip first saw me--I have it from himself, mind--he felt that I

  should have been his choice, if he had met with me before he met with my sister.

  Do you blame him?"

  "If you will take my advice," I said, "you will not inquire too closely into my

  opinion of Mr. Philip Dunboyne."

  "Perhaps you don't wish me to say anymore?" she suggested.

  "On the contrary, pray go on, if you like."

  After that concession, she was amiability itself. "Oh, yes," she assured me,

  "that's easily done." And she went on accordingly: "Philip having informed me of

  the state of his affections, I naturally followed his example. In fact, we

  exchanged confessions. Our marriage engagement followed as a matter of course.

  Do you blame me?"

  "I will wait till you have done."

  "I have no more to say."

  She made that amazing reply with such perfect composure, that I began to fear

  there must have been some misunderstanding between us. "Is that really all you

  have to say for yourself?" I persisted.

  Her patience with me was most exemplary. She lowered herself to my level. Not

  trusting to words only on this occasion, she (so to say) beat her meaning into

  my head by gesticulating on her fingers, as if she was educating a child.

  "Philip and I," she began, "are the victims of an accident, which kept us apart

  when we ought to have met together--we are not responsible for an accident." She

  impressed this on me by touching her forefinger. "Philip and I fell in love with

  each other at first sight--we are not responsible for the feelings implanted in

  our natures by an all-wise Providence." She assisted me in understanding this by

  touching her middle finger. "Philip and I owe a duty to each other, and accept a

  responsibility under those circumstances--the responsibility of getting

  married." A touch on her third finger, and an indulgent bow, announced that the

  lesson was ended. "I am not a clever man like you," she modestly acknowledged,

  "but I ask you to help us, when you next see my father, with some confidence.

  You know exactly what to say to him, by this time. Nothing has been forgotten."

  "Pardon me," I said, "a person has been forgotten."

  "Indeed? What person?"

  "Your sister."

  A little perplexed at first, Miss Helena reflected, and recovered herself.

  "Ah, yes," she said; "I was afraid I might be obliged to trouble you for an

  explanation--I see it now. You are shocked (very properly) when feelings of

  enmity exist between near relations; and you wish to be assured that I bear no

  malice toward Eunice. She is violent, she is sulky, she is stupid, she is

  selfish; and she cruelly refuses to live in the same house with me. Make your

  mind easy, sir, I forgive my sister."

  Let me not attempt to disguise it--Miss Helena Gracedieu confounded me.

  Ordinary audacity is one of those forms of insolence which mature experience

  dismisses with contempt. This girl's audacity struck down all resistance, for

  one shocking reason: it was unquestionably sincere. Strong conviction of her own

  virtue stared at me in her proud and daring eyes. At that time, I was not aware

  of what I have learned since. The horrid hardening of her moral sense had been

  accomplished by herself. In her diary, there has been found the confession of a

  secret course of reading--with supplementary reflections flowing from it, which

  need only to be described as worthy of their source.

  A person capable of repentance and reform would, in her place, have seen that

  she had disgusted me. Not a suspicion of this occurred to Miss Helena. "I see

  you are embarrassed," she remarked, "and I am at no loss to account for it. You

  are too polite to acknowledge that I have not made a friend of you yet. Oh, I

  mean to do it!"

  "No," I said, "I think not."

  "We shall see," she replied. "Sooner or later, you will find yourself saying a

  kind word to my father for Philip and me." She rose, and took a turn in the

  room--and stopped, eying me attentively. "Are you thinking of Eunice?" she

  asked.

  "Yes."

  "She has your sympathy, I suppose?"

  "My heart-felt sympathy."

  "I needn't ask how I stand in your estimation, after that. Pray express yourself

  freely. Your looks confess it--you view me with a feeling of aversion."

  "I view you with a feeling of horror."

  The exasperating influences of her language, her looks, and her tones would, as

  I venture to think, have got to the end of another man's self-control before

  this. Anyway, she had at last irritated me into speaking as strongly as I felt.

  What I said had been so plainly (perhaps so rudely) expressed, that

  misinterpretation of it seemed to be impossible. She mistook me, nevertheless.

  The most merciless disclosure of the dreary side of human destiny is surely to

  be found in the failure of words, spoken or written, so to answer their purpose

  that we can trust them, in our attempts to communicate with each other. Even

  when he seems to be connected, by the nearest and dearest relations, with his

  fellow-mortals, what a solitary creature, tried by the test of sympathy, the

  human being really is in the teeming world that he inhabits! Affording one more

  example of the impotence of human language to speak for itself, my

  misinterpreted words had found their way to the one sensitive place in Helena

  Gracedieu's impenetrable nature. She betrayed it in the quivering and flushing

  of her hard face, and in the appeal to the looking-glass which escaped her eyes

  the next moment. My hasty reply had roused the idea of a covert insult addressed

  to her handsome face. In other words, I had wounded her vanity. Driven by

  resentment, out came the secret distrust of me which had been lurking in that

  cold heart, from the moment when we first met.

  "I inspire you with horror, and Eunice inspires you with compassion," she said.

  "That, Mr. Governor, is not natural."

  "May I ask why?"

  "You know why."

  "No."

  "You will have it?"

  "I want an explanation, Miss Helena, if that is what you mean."

  "Take your explanation, then! You are not the stranger you are said to be to my

  sister and to me. Your interest in Eunice is a personal interest of some kind. I

  don't pretend to guess what it is. As for myself, it is plain that somebody else

  has been setting you against me, before Miss Jillgall got possession of your

  private ear."

  In alluding to Eunice, she had blundered, strangely enough, on something like

  the truth. But when she spoke of herself, the headlong malignity of her

  suspicions--making every allowance for the anger that had hurried her into

  them--seemed to call for
some little protest against a false assertion. I told

  her that she was completely mistaken.

  "I am completely right," she answered; "I saw it."

  "Saw what?"

  "Saw you pretending to be a stranger to me."

  "When did I do that?"

  "You did it when we met at the station."

  The reply was too ridiculous for the preservation of any control over my own

  sense of humor. It was wrong; but it was inevitable--I laughed. She looked at me

  with a fury, revealing a concentration of evil passion in her which I had not

  seen yet. I asked her pardon; I begged her to think a little before she

  persisted in taking a view of my conduct unworthy of her, and unjust to myself.

  "Unjust to You!" she burst out. "Who are you? A man who has driven your trade

  has spies always at his command--yes! and knows how to use them. You were primed

  with private information--you had, for all I know, a stolen photograph of me in

  your pocket--before ever you came to our town. Do you still deny it? Oh, sir,

  why degrade yourself by telling a lie?"

  No such outrage as this had ever been inflicted on me, at any time in my life.

  My forbearance must, I suppose, have been more severely tried than I was aware

  of myself. With or without excuse for me, I was weak enough to let a girl's

  spiteful tongue sting me, and, worse still, to let her see that I felt it.

  "You shall have no second opportunity, Miss Gracedieu, of insulting me." With

  that foolish reply, I opened the door violently and went out.

  She ran after me, triumphing in having roused the temper of a man old enough to

  have been her grandfather, and caught me by the arm. "Your own conduct has

  exposed you." (That was literally how she expressed herself.) "I saw it in your

  eyes when we met at the station. You, the stranger--you who allowed poor

  ignorant me to introduce myself--you knew me all the time, knew me by sight!"

  I shook her hand off with an inconsiderable roughness, humiliating to remember.

  "It's false!" I cried. "I knew you by your likeness to your mother."

  The moment the words had passed my lips, I came to my senses again; I remembered

  what fatal words they might prove to be, if they reached the Minister's ears.

  Heard only by his daughter, my reply seemed to cool the heat of her anger in an

  instant.

  "So you knew my mother?" she said. "My father never told us that, when he spoke

  of your being such a very old friend of his. Strange, to say the least of it."

  I was wise enough--now when wisdom had come too late--not to attempt to explain

  myself, and not to give her an opportunity of saying more. "We are neither of us

  in a state of mind," I answered, "to allow this interview to continue. I must

  try to recover my composure; and I leave you to do the same."

  In the solitude of my room, I was able to look my position fairly in the face.

  Mr. Gracedieu's wife had come to me, in the long-past time, without her

  husband's knowledge. Tempted to a cruel resolve by the maternal triumph of

  having an infant of her own, she had resolved to rid herself of the poor little

  rival in her husband's fatherly affection, by consigning the adopted child to

  the keeping of a charitable asylum. She had dared to ask me to help her. I had

  kept the secret of her shameful visit--I can honestly say, for the Minister's

  sake. And now, long after time had doomed those events to oblivion, they were

  revived--and revived by me. Thanks to my folly, Mr. Gracedieu's daughter knew

  what I had concealed from Mr. Gracedieu himself.

  What course did respect for my friend, and respect for myself, counsel me to

  take?

  I could only see before me a choice of two evils. To wait for events--with the

  too certain prospect of a vindictive betrayal of my indiscretion by Helena

  Gracedieu. Or to take the initiative into my own hands, and risk consequences

  which I might regret to the end of my life, by making my confession to the

  Minister.

  Before I had decided, somebody knocked at the door. It was the maid-servant

  again. Was it possible she had been sent by Helena?

  "Another message?"

  "Yes, sir. My master wishes to see you."

  CHAPTER XXXVIII.

  THE GIRLS' AGES.

  HAD the Minister's desire to see me been inspired by his daughter's betrayal of

  what I had unfortunately said to her? Although he would certainly not consent to

  receive her personally, she would be at liberty to adopt a written method of

  communication with him, and the letter might be addressed in such a manner as to

  pique his curiosity. If Helena's vindictive purpose had been already

  accomplished--and if Mr. Gracedieu left me no alternative but to present his

  unworthy wife in her true character--I can honestly say that I dreaded the

  consequences, not as they might affect myself, but as they might affect my

  unhappy friend in his enfeebled state of body and mind.

  When I entered his room, he was still in bed.

  The bed-curtains were so drawn, on the side nearest to the window, as to keep

  the light from falling too brightly on his weak eyes. In the shadow thus thrown

  on him, it was not possible to see his face plainly enough, from the open side

  of the bed, to arrive at any definite conclusion as to what might be passing in

  his mind. After having been awake for some hours during the earlier part of the

  night, he had enjoyed a long and undisturbed sleep. "I feel stronger this

  morning," he said, "and I wish to speak to you while my mind is clear."

  If the quiet tone of his voice was not an assumed tone, he was surely ignorant

  of all that had passed between his daughter and myself.

  "Eunice will be here soon," he proceeded, "and I ought to explain why I have

  sent for her to come and meet you. I have reasons, serious reasons, mind, for

  wishing you to compare her personal appearance with Helena's personal

  appearance, and then to tell me which of the two, on a fair comparison, looks

  the eldest. Pray bear in mind that I attach the greatest importance to the

  conclusion at which you may arrive."

  He spoke more clearly and collectedly than I had heard him speak yet.

  Here and there I detected hesitations and repetitions, which I have purposely

  passed over. The substance of what he said to me is all that I shall present in

  this place. Careful as I have been to keep my record of events within strict

  limits, I have written at a length which I was far indeed from contemplating

  when I accepted Mr. Gracedieu's invitation.

  Having promised to comply with the strange request which he had addressed to me,

  I ventured to remind him of past occasions on which he had pointedly abstained,

  when the subject presented itself, from speaking of the girls' ages. "You have

  left it to my discretion," I added, "to decide a question in which you are

  seriously interested, relating to your daughters. Have I no excuse for

  regretting that I have not been admitted to your confidence a little more

  freely?"

  "You have every excuse," he answered. "But you trouble me all the same. There

  was something else that I had to say to you--and your curiosity gets in the

  way."
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br />   He said this with a sullen emphasis. In my position, the worst of evils was

  suspense. I told him that my curiosity could wait; and I begged that he would

  relieve his mind of what was pressing on it at the moment.

  "Let me think a little," he said.

  I waited anxiously for the decision at which he might arrive. Nothing came of it

  to justify my misgivings. "Leave what I have in my mind to ripen in my mind," he

  said. "The mystery about the girls' ages seems to irritate you. If I put my good

  friend's temper to any further trial, he will be of no use to me. Never mind if

  my head swims; I'm used to that. Now listen!"

  Strange as the preface was, the explanation that followed was stranger yet. I

  offer a shortened and simplified version, giving accurately the substance of

  what I heard.

  The Minister entered without reserve on the mysterious subject of the ages.

  Eunice, he informed me, was nearly two years older than Helena. If she outwardly

  showed her superiority of age, any person acquainted with the circumstances

  under which the adopted infant had been received into Mr. Gracedieu's childless

  household, need only compare the so-called sisters in after-life, and would

  thereupon identify the eldest-looking young lady of the two as the offspring of

  the woman who had been hanged for murder. With such a misfortune as this

  presenting itself as a possible prospect, the Minister was bound to prevent the

  girls from ignorantly betraying each other by allusions to their ages and their

  birthdays. After much thought, he had devised a desperate means of meeting the

  difficulty--already made known, as I am told, for the information of strangers

  who may read the pages that have gone before mine. My friend's plan of

  proceeding had, by the nature of it, exposed him to injurious comment, to

  embarrassing questions, and to doubts and misconceptions, all patiently endured

  in consideration of the security that had been attained. Proud of his

  explanation, Mr. Gracedieu's vanity called upon me to acknowledge that my

  curiosity had been satisfied, and my doubts completely set at rest.

  No: my obstinate common sense was not reduced to submission, even yet. Looking

  back over a lapse of seventeen years, I asked what had happened, in that long

  interval, to justify the anxieties which still appeared to trouble my friend.

  This time, my harmless curiosity could be gratified by a reply expressed in

  three words--nothing had happened.

  Then what, in Heaven's name, was the Minister afraid of?

  His voice dropped to a whisper. He said: "I am afraid of the women."

  Who were the women?

  Two of them actually proved to be the servants employed in Mr. Gracedieu's

  house, at the bygone time when be had brought the child home with him from the

  prison! To point out the absurdity of the reasons that he gave for fearing what

  female curiosity might yet attempt, if circumstances happened to encourage it,

  would have been a mere waste of words. Dismissing the subject, I next

  ascertained that the Minister's doubts extended even to the two female warders,

  who had been appointed to watch the murderess in turn, during her last days in

  prison. I easily relieved his mind in this case. One of the warders was dead.

  The other had married a farmer in Australia. Had we exhausted the list of

  suspected persons yet? No: there was one more left; and the Minister declared

  that he had first met with her in my official residence, at the time when I was

  Governor of the prison.

  "She presented herself to me by name," he said; "and she spoke rudely. A Miss--"

  He paused to consult his memory, and this time (thanks perhaps to his night's

  rest) his memory answered the appeal. "I have got it!" he cried--"Miss Chance."

  My friend had interested me in his imaginary perils at last. It was just

  possible that he might have a formidable person to deal with now.

  During my residence at Florence, the Chaplain and I had taken many a

  retrospective look (as old men will) at past events in our lives. My former

  colleague spoke of the time when he had performed clerical duty for his friend,