The Legacy of Cain Read online

she had to say. In this position her side-face only was presented to me. It was

  a ghastly face. The eye that I could see turned wickedly on me when I came

  in--then turned away again. Otherwise, she never moved. I confess I trembled,

  but I did my best to disguise it.

  She broke out suddenly with what she had to say: "I won't allow this state of

  things to go on any longer. My horror of an exposure which will disgrace the

  family has kept me silent, wrongly silent, so far. Philip's life is in danger. I

  am forgetting my duty to my affianced husband, if I allow myself to be kept away

  from him any longer. Open those locked doors, and relieve me from the sight of

  you. Open the doors, I say, or you will both of you--you the accomplice, she the

  wretch who directs you--repent it to the end of your lives."

  In my own mind, I asked myself if she had gone mad. But I only answered: "I

  don't understand you."

  She said again: "You are Eunice's accomplice."

  "Accomplice in what?" I asked.

  She turned her head slowly and faced me. I shrank from looking at her.

  "All the circumstances prove it," she went on. "I have supplanted Eunice in

  Philip's affection. She was once engaged to marry him; I am engaged to marry him

  now. She is resolved that he shall never make me his wife. He will die if I

  delay any longer. He will die if I don't crush her, like the reptile she is. She

  comes here--and what does she do? Keeps him prisoner under her own

  superintendence. Who gets his medicine? She gets it. Who cooks his food? She

  cooks it. The doors are locked. I might be a witness of what goes on; and I am

  kept out. The servants who ought to wait on him are kept out. She can do what

  she likes with his medicine; she can do what she likes with his food: she is

  infuriated with him for deserting her, and promising to marry me. Give him back

  to my care; or, dreadful as it is to denounce my own sister, I shall claim

  protection from the magistrates."

  I lost all fear of her: I stepped close up to the place at which she was

  standing; I cried out: "Of what, in God's name, do you accuse your sister?"

  She answered: "I accuse her of poisoning Philip Dunboyne."

  I ran out of the room; I rushed headlong down the stairs. The doctor heard me,

  and came running into the hall. I caught hold of him like a madwoman. "Euneece!"

  My breath was gone; I could only say: "Euneece!"

  He dragged me into the dining-room. There was wine on the side-board, which he

  had ordered medically for Philip. He forced me to drink some of it. It ran

  through me like fire; it helped me to speak. "Now tell me," he said, "what has

  she done to Eunice?"

  "She brings a horrible accusation against her," I answered.

  "What is the accusation?" I told him.

  He looked me through and through. "Take care!" he said. "No hysterics, no

  exaggeration. You may lead to dreadful consequences if you are not sure of

  yourself. If it's really true, say it again." I said it again--quietly this

  time.

  His face startled me; it was white with rage. He snatched his hat off the hall

  table.

  "What are you going to do?" I asked.

  "My duty." He was out of the house before I could speak to him again.

  ----

  Third Period (concluded).

  TROUBLES AND TRIUMPHS OF THE FAMILY, RELATED BY THE GOVERNOR.

  ----

  CHAPTER LXII.

  THE SENTENCE PRONOUNCED.

  MARTYRS to gout know, by sad experience, that they suffer under one of the most

  capricious of maladies. An attack of this disease will shift, in the most

  unaccountable manner, from one part of the body to another; or, it will release

  the victim when there is every reason to fear that it is about to strengthen its

  hold on him; or, having shown the fairest promise of submitting to medical

  treatment, it will cruelly lay the patient prostrate again in a state of

  relapse. Adverse fortune, in my case, subjected me to this last and worst trial

  of endurance. Two months passed--months of pain aggravated by anxiety--before I

  was able to help Eunice and Miss Jillgall personally with my sympathy and

  advice.

  During this interval, I heard regularly from the friendly and faithful Selina.

  Terror and suspense, courageously endured day after day, seem to have broken

  down her resistance, poor soul, when Eunice's good name and Eunice's

  tranquillity were threatened by the most infamous of false accusations. From

  that time, Miss Jillgall's method of expressing herself betrayed a gradual

  deterioration. I shall avoid presenting at a disadvantage a correspondent who

  has claims on my gratitude, if I give the substance only of what she

  wrote--assisted by the newspaper which she sent to me, while the legal

  proceedings were in progress.

  Honest indignation does sometimes counsel us wisely. When the doctor left Miss

  Jillgall, in anger and in haste, he had determined on taking the course from

  which, as a humane man and a faithful friend, he had hitherto recoiled. It was

  no time, now, to shrink from the prospect of an exposure. The one hope of

  successfully encountering the vindictive wickedness of Helena lay in the

  resolution to be beforehand with her, in the appeal to the magistrates with

  which she had threatened Eunice and Miss Jillgall. The doctor's sworn

  information stated the whole terrible case of the poisoning, ranging from his

  first suspicions and their confirmation, to Helena's atrocious attempt to accuse

  her innocent sister of her own guilt. So firmly were the magistrates convinced

  of the serious nature of the case thus stated, that they did not hesitate to

  issue their warrant. Among the witnesses whose attendance was immediately

  secured, by the legal adviser to whom the doctor applied, were the farmer and

  his wife.

  Helena was arrested while she was dressing to go out. Her composure was not for

  a moment disturbed. "I was on my way," she said coolly, "to make a statement

  before the justices. The sooner they hear what I have to say the better."

  The attempt of this shameless wretch to "turn the tables" on poor

  Eunice--suggested, as I afterward discovered, by the record of family history

  which she had quoted in her journal--was defeated with ease. The farmer and his

  wife proved the date at which Eunice had left her place of residence under their

  roof. The doctor's evidence followed. He proved, by the production of his

  professional diary, that the discovery of the attempt to poison his patient had

  taken place before the day of Eunice's departure from the farm, and that the

  first improvement in Mr. Philip Dunboyne's state of health had shown itself

  after that young lady's arrival to perform the duties of a nurse. To the wise

  precautions which she had taken--perverted by Helena to the purpose of a false

  accusation--the doctor attributed the preservation of the young man's life.

  Having produced the worst possible impression on the minds of the magistrates,

  Helena was remanded. Her legal adviser had predicted this result; but the

  vindictive obstinacy of his client had set both experience and remonstrance at

  defiance.
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  At the renewed examination, the line of defense adopted by the prisoner's lawyer

  proved to be--mistaken identity.

  It was asserted that she had never entered the chemist's shop; also, that the

  assistant had wrongly identified some other lady as Miss Helena Gracedieu; also,

  that there was not an atom of evidence to connect her with the stealing of the

  doctor's prescription-paper and the forgery of his writing. Other assertions to

  the same purpose followed, on which it is needless to dwell.

  The case for the prosecution was, happily, in competent hands. With the

  exception of one witness, cross-examination afforded no material help to the

  evidence for the defense.

  The chemist swore positively to the personal appearance of Helena, as being the

  personal appearance of the lady who had presented the prescription. His

  assistant, pressed on the question of identity, broke down under

  cross-examination--purposely, as it was whispered, serving the interests of the

  prisoner. But the victory, so far gained by the defense, was successfully

  contested by the statement of the next witness, a respectable tradesman in the

  town. He had seen the newspaper report of the first examination, and had

  volunteered to present himself as a witness. A member of Mr. Gracedieu's

  congregation, his pew in the chapel was so situated as to give him a view of the

  minister's daughters occupying their pew. He had seen the prisoner on every

  Sunday, for years past; and he swore that he was passing the door of the

  chemist's shop, at the moment when she stepped out into the street, having a

  bottle covered with the customary white paper in her hand. The doctor and his

  servant were the next witnesses called. They were severely cross-examined. Some

  of their statements--questioned technically with success--received unexpected

  and powerful support, due to the discovery and production of the prisoner's

  diary. The entries, guardedly as some of them were written, revealed her motive

  for attempting to poison Philip Dunboyne; proved that she had purposely called

  on the doctor when she knew that he would be out, that she had entered the

  consulting-room, and examined the medical books, had found (to use her own

  written words) "a volume that interested her," and had used the

  prescription-papers for the purpose of making notes. The notes themselves were

  not to be found; they had doubtless been destroyed. Enough, and more than

  enough, remained to make the case for the prosecution complete. The magistrates

  committed Helena Gracedieu for trial at the next assizes.

  I arrived in the town, as well as I can remember, about a week after the trial

  had taken place.

  Found guilty, the prisoner had been recommended to mercy by the jury--partly in

  consideration of her youth; partly as an expression of sympathy and respect for

  her unhappy father. The judge (a father himself) passed a lenient sentence. She

  was condemned to imprisonment for two years. The careful matron of the jail had

  provided herself with a bottle of smelling-salts, in the fear that there might

  be need for it when Helena heard her sentence pronounced. Not the slightest sign

  of agitation appeared in her face or her. manner. She lied to the last;

  asserting her innocence in a firm voice, and returning from the dock to the

  prison without requiring assistance from anybody.

  Relating these particulars to me, in a state of ungovernable excitement, good

  Miss Jillgall ended with a little confession of her own, which operated as a

  relief to my overburdened mind after what I had just heard.

  "I wouldn't own it," she said, "to anybody but a dear friend. One thing, in the

  dreadful disgrace that has fallen on us, I am quite at a loss to account for.

  Think of Mr. Gracedieu's daughter being one of those criminal creatures on whom

  it was once your terrible duty to turn the key! Why didn't she commit suicide?"

  "My dear lady, no thoroughly wicked creature ever yet committed suicide.

  Self-destruction, when it is not an act of madness, implies some acuteness of

  feeling--sensibility to remorse or to shame, or perhaps a distorted idea of

  making atonement. There is no such thing as remorse or shame, or hope of making

  atonement, in Helena's nature."

  "But when she comes out of prison, what will she do?"

  "Don't alarm yourself, my good friend. She will do very well."

  "Oh, hush! hush! Poetical justice, Mr. Governor!"

  "Poetical fiddlesticks, Miss Jillgall."

  CHAPTER LXIII.

  THE OBSTACLE REMOVED.

  WHEN the subject of the trial was happily dismissed, my first inquiry related to

  Eunice. The reply was made with an ominous accompaniment of sighs and sad looks.

  Eunice had gone back to her duties as governess at the farm. Hearing this, I

  asked naturally what had become of Philip.

  Melancholy news, again, was the news that I now heard.

  Mr. Dunboyne the elder had died suddenly, at his house in Ireland, while Philip

  was on his way home. When the funeral ceremony had come to an end, the will was

  read. It had been made only a few days before the testator's death; and the

  clause which left all his property to his son was preceded by expressions of

  paternal affection, at a time when Philip was in sore need of consolation. After

  alluding to a letter, received from his son, the old man added: "I always loved

  him, without caring to confess it; I detest scenes of sentiment, kissings,

  embracings, tears, and that sort of thing. But Philip has yielded to my wishes,

  and has broken off a marriage which would have made him, as well as me, wretched

  for life. After this, I may speak my mind from my grave, and may tell my boy

  that I loved him. If the wish is likely to be of any use, I will add (on the

  chance)--God bless him."

  "Does Philip submit to separation from Eunice?" I asked. "Does he stay in

  Ireland?"

  "Not he, poor fellow! He will be here to-morrow or next day. When I last wrote,"

  Miss Jillgall continued, "I told him I hoped to see you again soon. If you can't

  help us (I mean with Eunice) that unlucky young man will do some desperate

  thing. He will join those madmen at large who disturb poor savages in Africa, or

  go nowhere to find nothing in the Arctic regions.

  "Whatever I can do, Miss Jillgall, shall be gladly done. Is it really possible

  that Eunice refuses to marry him, after having saved his life?"

  "A little patience, please, Mr. Governor; let Philip tell his own story. If I

  try to do it, I shall only cry--and we have had tears enough lately, in this

  house."

  Further consultation being thus deferred, I went upstairs to the Minister's

  room.

  He was sitting by the window, in his favorite armchair, absorbed in knitting!

  The person who attended on him, a good-natured, patient fellow, had been a

  sailor in his younger days, and had taught Mr. Gracedieu how to use the needles.

  "You see it amuses him," the man said, kindly. "Don't notice his mistakes, he

  thinks there isn't such another in the world for knitting as himself. You can

  see, sir, how he sticks to it." He was so absorbed over his employment that I

&
nbsp; had to speak to him twice, before I could induce him to look at me. The utter

  ruin of his intellect did not appear to have exercised any disastrous influence

  over his bodily health. On the contrary, he had grown fatter since I had last

  seen him; his complexion had lost the pallor that I remembered--there was color

  in his cheeks.

  "Don't you remember your old friend?" I said. He smiled, and nodded, and

  repeated the words:

  "Yes, yes, my old friend." It was only too plain that he had not the least

  recollection of me. "His memory is gone," the man said. "When he puts away his

  knitting, at night, I have to find it for him in the morning. But, there! he's

  happy--enjoys his victuals, likes sitting out in the garden and watching the

  birds. There's been a deal of trouble in the family, sir; and it has all passed

  over him like a wet sponge over a slate." The old sailor was right. If that

  wreck of a man had been capable of feeling and thinking, his daughter's disgrace

  would have broken his heart. In a world of sin and sorrow, is peaceable

  imbecility always to be pitied? I have known men who would have answered,

  without hesitation: "It is to be envied." And where (some persons might say) was

  the poor Minister's reward for the act of mercy which had saved Eunice in her

  infancy? Where it ought to be! A man who worthily performs a good action finds

  his reward in the action itself.

  At breakfast, on the next day, the talk touched on those passages in Helena's

  diary, which had been produced in court as evidence against her.

  I expressed a wish to see what revelation of a depraved nature the entries in

  the diary might present; and my curiosity was gratified. At a fitter time, I may

  find an opportunity of alluding to the impression produced on me by the diary.

  In the meanwhile, the event of Philip's return claims notice in the first place.

  The poor fellow was so glad to see me that he shook hands as heartily as if we

  had known each other from the time when he was a boy.

  "Do you remember how kindly you spoke to me when I called on you in London?" he

  asked. "If I have repeated those words once--but perhaps you don't remember

  them? You said: 'If I was as young as you are, I should not despair.' Well! I

  have said that to myself over and over again, for a hundred times at least.

  Eunice will listen to you, sir, when she will listen to nobody else. This is the

  first happy moment I have had for weeks past."

  I suppose I must have looked glad to hear that. Anyway, Philip shook hands with

  me again.

  Miss Jillgall was present. The gentle-hearted old maid was so touched by our

  meeting that she abandoned herself to the genial impulse of the moment, and gave

  Philip a kiss. The outraged claims of propriety instantly seized on her. She

  blushed as if the long-lost days of her girlhood had been found again, and ran

  out of the room.

  "Now, Mr. Philip," I said, "I have been waiting, at Miss Jillgall's suggestion,

  to get my information from you. There is something wrong between Eunice and

  yourself. What is it? And who is to blame?"

  "Her vile sister is to blame," he answered. "That reptile was determined to

  sting us. And she has done it!" he cried, starting to his feet, and walking up

  and down the room, urged into action by his own unendurable sense of wrong. "I

  say, she has done it, after Eunice has saved me--done it, when Eunice was ready

  to be my wife."

  "How has she done it?"

  Between grief and indignation his reply was involved in a confusion of

  vehemently-spoken words, which I shall not attempt to reproduce. Eunice had

  reminded him that her sister had been publicly convicted of an infamous crime,

  and publicly punished for it by imprisonment. "If I consent to marry you," she

  said, "I stain you with my disgrace; that shall never be." With this resolution,

  she had left him. "I have tried to convince her," Philip said, "that she will

  not be associated with her sister's disgrace when she bears my name; I have