Book: THE TWO DESTINIES

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"I have seen her; and I have just returned to my own house. My
distress of mind is great. But I will do my best to write
intelligibly and fully of what has happened.

"Her sinking energies, when I first saw her this morning, had
rallied for the moment. The nurse informed me that she had slept
during the early hours of the new day. Previously to this, there
were symptoms of fever, accompanied by some slight delirium. The
words that escaped her in this condition appear to have related
mainly to an absent person whom she spoke of by the name of
'George.' Her one anxiety, I am told, was to see 'George' again
before she died.

"Hearing this, it struck me as barely possible that the portrait
in the locket might be the portrait of the absent person. I sent
her nurse out of the room, and took her hand in mine. Trusting
partly to her own admirable courage and strength of mind, and
partly to the confidence which I knew she placed in me as an old
friend and adviser, I adverted to the words which had fallen from
her in the feverish state. And then I said, 'You know that any
secret of yours is safe in my keeping. Tell me, do you expect to
receive any little keepsake or memorial from 'George'?

"It was a risk to run. The black veil which she always wears was
over her face. I had nothing to tell me of the effect which I was
producing on her, except the changing temperature, or the partial
movement, of her hand, as it lay in mine, just under the silk
coverlet of the bed.

"She said nothing at first. Her hand turned suddenly from cold to
hot, and closed with a quick pressure on mine. Her breathing
became oppressed. When she spoke, it was with difficulty. She
told me nothing; she only put a question:

" 'Is he here?' she asked.

"I said, 'Nobody is here but myself.'

" 'Is there a letter?'

"I said 'No.'

"She was silent for a while. Her hand turned cold; the grasp of
her fingers loosened. She spoke again: 'Be quick, doctor!
Whatever it is, give it to me, before I die.'

"I risked the experiment; I opened the locket, and put it into
her hand.

"So far as I could discover, she refrained from looking at it at
first. She said, 'Turn me in the bed, with my face to the wall.'
I obeyed her. With her back turned toward me she lifted her veil;
and then (as I suppose) she looked at the portrait. A long, low
cry--not of sorrow or pain: a cry of rapture and delight--burst
from her. I heard her kiss the portrait. Accustomed as I am in my
profession to piteous sights and sounds, I never remember so
completely losing my self-control as I lost it at that moment. I
was obliged to turn away to the window.

"Hardly a minute can have passed before I was back again at the
bedside. In that brief interval she had changed. Her voice had
sunk again; it was so weak that I could only hear what she said
by leaning over her and placing my ear close to her lips.

" 'Put it round my neck,' she whispered.

"I clasped the chain of the locket round her neck. She tried to
lift her hand to it, but her strength failed her.

" 'Help me to hide it,' she said.

"I guided her hand. She hid the locket in her bosom, under the
white dressing-gown which she wore that day. The oppression in
her breathing increased. I raised her on the pillow. The pillow
was not high enough. I rested her head on my shoulder, and
partially opened her veil. She was able to speak once more,
feeling a momentary relief.

" 'Promise,' she said, 'that no stranger's hand shall touch me.
Promise to bury me as I am now.'

"I gave her my promise.

"Her failing breath quickened. She was just able to articulate
the next words:

" 'Cover my face again.'

"I drew the veil over her face. She rested a while in silence.
Suddenly the sound of her laboring respiration ceased. She
started, and raised her head from my shoulder.

" 'Are you in pain?' I asked.

" 'I am in heaven!' she answered.

" Her head dropped back on my breast as she spoke. In that last
outburst of joy her last breath had passed. The moment of her
supreme happiness and the moment of her death were one. The mercy
of God had found her at last.

"I return to my letter before the post goes out.

"I have taken the necessary measures for the performance of my
promise. She will be buried with the portrait hidden in her
bosom, and with the black veil over her face. No nobler creature
ever breathed the breath of life. Tell the stranger who sent her
his portrait that her last moments were joyful moments, through
his remembrance of her as expressed by his gift.

"I observe a passage in your letter to which I have not yet
replied. You ask me if there was any more serious reason for the
persistent hiding of her face under the veil than the reason
which she was accustomed to give to the persons about her. It is
true that she suffered under a morbid sensitiveness to the action
of light. It is also true that this was not the only result, or
the worst result, of the malady that afflicted her. She had
another reason for keeping her face hidden--a reason known to two
persons only: to the doctor who lives in the village near her
father's house, and to myself. We are both pledged never to
divulge to any living creature what our eyes alone have seen. We
have kept our terrible secret even from her father; and we shall
carry it with us to our graves. I have no more to say on this
melancholy subject to the person in whose interest you write.
When he thinks of her now, let him think of the beauty which no
bodily affliction can profane--the beauty of the freed spirit,
eternally happy in its union with the angels of God.

"I may add, before I close my letter, that the poor old father
will not be left in cheerless solitude at the lak e house. He
will pass the remainder of his days under my roof, with my good
wife to take care of him, and my children to remind him of the
brighter side of life."


So the letter ended. I put it away, and went out. The solitude of
my room forewarned me unendurably of the coming solitude in my
own life. My interests in this busy world were now narrowed to
one object--to the care of my mother's failing health. Of the two
women whose hearts had once beaten in loving sympathy with mine,
one lay in her grave and the other was lost to me in a foreign
land. On the drive by the sea I met my mother, in her little
pony-chaise, moving slowly under the mild wintry sunshine. I
dismissed the man who was in attendance on her, and walked by the
side of the chaise, with the reins in my hand. We chatted quietly
on trivial subjects. I closed my eyes to the dreary future that
was before me, and tried, in the intervals of the heart-ache, to
live resignedly in the passing hour.

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE PHYSICIAN'S OPINION.

SIX months have elapsed. Summer-time has come again.

The last parting is over. Prolonged by my care, the days of my
mother's life have come to their end. She has died in my arms:
her last words have been spoken to me, her last look on earth has
been mine. I am now, in the saddest and plainest meaning of the
words, alone in the world.

The affliction which has befallen me has left certain duties to
be performed that require my presence in London. My house is let;
I am staying at a hotel. My friend, Sir James (also in London on
business), has rooms near mine. We breakfast and dine together in
my sitting-room. For the moment solitude is dreadful to me, and
yet I cannot go into society; I shrink from persons who are mere
acquaintances. At Sir James's suggestion, however, one visitor at
the hotel has been asked to dine with us, who claims distinction
as no ordinary guest. The physician who first warned me of the
critical state of my mother's health is anxious to hear what I
can tell him of her last moments. His time is too precious to be
wasted in the earlier hours of the day, and he joins us at the
dinner-table when his patients leave him free to visit his
friends.

The dinner is nearly at an end. I have made the effort to
preserve my self-control; and in few words have told the simple
story of my mother's last peaceful days on earth. The
conversation turns next on topics of little interest to me: my
mind rests after the effort that it has made; my observation is
left free to exert itself as usual.

Little by little, while the talk goes on, I observe something in
the conduct of the celebrated physician which first puzzles me,
and then arouses my suspicion of some motive for his presence
which has not been acknowledged, and in which I am concerned.

Over and over again I discover that his eyes are resting on me
with a furtive interest and attention which he seems anxious to
conceal. Over and over again I notice that he contrives to divert
the conversation from general topics, and to lure me into talking
of myself; and, stranger still (unless I am quite mistaken), Sir
James understands and encourages him. Under various pretenses I
am questioned about what I have suffered in the past, and what
plans of life I have formed for the future. Among other subjects
of personal interest to me, the subject of supernatural
appearances is introduced. I am asked if I believe in occult
spiritual sympathies, and in ghostly apparitions of dead or
distant persons. I am dexterously led into hinting that my views
on this difficult and debatable question are in some degree
influenced by experiences of my own. Hints, however, are not
enough to satisfy the doctor's innocent curiosity; he tries to
induce me to relate in detail what I have myself seen and felt.
But by this time I am on my guard; I make excuses; I steadily
abstain from taking my friend into my confidence. It is more and
more plain to me that I am being made the subject of an
experiment, in which Sir James and the physician are equally
interested. Outwardly assuming to be guiltless of any suspicion
of what is going on, I inwardly determine to discover the true
motive for the doctor's presence that evening, and for the part
that Sir James has taken in inviting him to be my guest.

Events favor my purpose soon after the dessert has been placed on
the table.

The waiter enters the room with a letter for me, and announces
that the bearer waits to know if there is any answer. I open the
envelope, and find inside a few lines from my lawyers, announcing
the completion of some formal matter of business. I at once seize
the opportunity that is offered to me. Instead of sending a
verbal message downstairs, I make my apologies, and use the
letter as a pretext for leaving the room.

Dismissing the messenger who waits below, I return to the
corridor in which my rooms are situated, and softly open the door
of my bed-chamber. A second door communicates with the
sitting-room, and has a ventilator in the upper part of it. I
have only to stand under the ventilator, and every word of the
conversation between Sir James and the physician reaches my ears.

"Then you think I am right?" are the first words I hear, in Sir
James's voice.

"Quite right," the doctor answers.

"I have done my best to make him change his dull way of life,"
Sir James proceeds. "I have asked him to pay a visit to my house
in Scotland; I have proposed traveling with him on the Continent;
I have offered to take him with me on my next voyage in the
yacht. He has but one answer--he simply says No to everything
that I can suggest. You have heard from his own lips that he has
no definite plans for the future. What is to become of him? What
had we better do?"

"It is not easy to say," I hear the physician reply. "To speak
plainly, the man's nervous system is seriously deranged. I
noticed something strange in him when he first came to consult me
about his mother's health. The mischief has not been caused
entirely by the affliction of her death. In my belief, his mind
has been--what shall I say?--unhinged, for some time past. He is
a very reserved person. I suspect he has been oppressed by
anxieties which he has kept secret from every one. At his age,
the unacknowledged troubles of life are generally troubles caused
by women. It is in his temperament to take the romantic view of
love; and some matter-of-fact woman of the present day may have
bitterly disappointed him. Whatever may be the cause, the effect
is plain--his nerves have broken down, and his brain is
necessarily affected by whatever affects his nerves. I have known
men in his condition who have ended badly. He may drift into
insane delusions, if his present course of life is not altered.
Did you hear what he said when we talked about ghosts?"

"Sheer nonsense!" Sir James remarks.

"Sheer delusion would be the more correct form of expression,"
the doctor rejoins. "And other delusions may grow out of it at
any moment."

"What is to be done?" persists Sir James. "I may really say for
myself, doctor, that I feel a fatherly interest in the poor
fellow. His mother was one of my oldest and dearest friends, and
he has inherited many of her engaging and endearing qualities. I
hope you don't think the case is bad enough to be a case for
restraint?"

"Certainly not--as yet," answers the doctor. "So far there is no
positive brain disease; and there is accordingly no sort of
reason for placing him under restraint. It is essentially a
difficult and a doubtful case. Have him privately looked after by
a competent person, and thwart him in nothing, if you can
possibly help it. The merest trifle may excite his suspicions;
and if that happens, we lose all control over him."

"You don't think he suspects us already, do you, doctor?"

"I hope not. I saw him once or twice look at me very strangely;
and he has certainly been a long time out of the room."

Hearing this, I wait to hear no more. I return to the,
sitting-room (by way of the corridor) and resume my place at the
table.

The indignation that I feel--naturally enough, I think, under the
circumstances--makes a good actor of me for once in my life. I
invent the necessary
excuse for my long absence, and take my part in the
conversation, keeping the strictest guard on every word that
escapes me, without betraying any appearance of restraint in my
manner. Early in the evening the doctor leaves us to go to a
scientific meeting. For half an hour or more Sir James remains
with me. By way (as I suppose) of farther testing the state of my
mind, he renews the invitation to his house in Scotland. I
pretend to feel flattered by his anxiety to secure me as his
guest. I undertake to reconsider my first refusal, and to give
him a definite answer when we meet the next morning at breakfast.
Sir James is delighted. We shake hands cordially, and wish each
other good-night. At last I am left alone.

My resolution as to my next course of proceeding is formed
without a moment's hesitation. I determine to leave the hotel
privately the next morning before Sir James is out of his
bedroom.

To what destination I am to betake myself is naturally the next
question that arises, and this also I easily decide. During the
last days of my mother's life we spoke together frequently of the
happy past days when we were living together on the banks of the
Greenwater lake. The longing thus inspired to look once more at
the old scenes, to live for a while again among the old
associations, has grown on me since my mother's death. I have,
happily for myself, not spoken of this feeling to Sir James or to
any other person. When I am missed at the hotel, there will be no
suspicion of the direction in which I have turned my steps. To
the old home in Suffolk I resolve to go the next morning.
Wandering among the scenes of my boyhood, I can consider with
myself how I may best bear the burden of the life that lies
before me.

After what I have heard that evening, I confide in nobody. For
all I know to the contrary, my own servant may be employed
to-morrow as the spy who watches my actions. When the man makes
his appearance to take his orders for the night, I tell him to
wake me at six the next morning, and release him from further
attendance.

I next employ myself in writing two letters. They will be left on
the table, to speak for themselves after my departure.

In the first letter I briefly inform Sir James that I have
discovered his true reason for inviting the doctor to dinner.
While I thank him for the interest he takes in my welfare, I
decline to be made the object of any further medical inquiries as
to the state of my mind. In due course of time, when my plans are
settled, he will hear from me again. Meanwhile, he need feel no
anxiety about my safety. It is one among my other delusions to
believe that I am still perfectly capable of taking care of
myself. My second letter is addressed to the landlord of the
hotel, and simply provides for the disposal of my luggage and the
payment of my bill.

I enter my bedroom next, and pack a traveling-bag with the few
things that I can carry with me. My money is in my dressing-case.
Opening it, I discover my pretty keepsake--the green flag! Can I
return to "Greenwater Broad," can I look again at the bailiff's
cottage, without the one memorial of little Mary that I possess?
Besides, have I not promised Miss Dunross that Mary's gift shall
always go with me wherever I go? and is the promise not doubly
sacred now that she is dead? For a while I sit idly looking at
the device on the flag--the white dove embroidered on the green
ground, with the golden olive-branch in its beak. The innocent
love-story of my early life returns to my memory, and shows me in
horrible contrast the life that I am leading now. I fold up the
flag and place it carefully in my traveling-bag. This done, all
is done. I may rest till the morning comes.

No! I lie down on my bed, and I discover that there is no rest
for me that night.

Now that I have no occupation to keep my energies employed, now
that my first sense of triumph in the discomfiture of the friends
who have plotted against me has had time to subside, my mind
reverts to the conversation that I have overheard, and considers
it from a new point of view. For the first time, the terrible
question confronts me: The doctor's opinion on my case has been
given very positively. How do I know that the doctor is not
right?

This famous physician has risen to the head of his profession
entirely by his own abilities. He is one of the medical men who
succeed by means of an ingratiating manner and the dexterous
handling of good opportunities. Even his enemies admit that he
stands unrivaled in the art of separating the true conditions
from the false in the discovery of disease, and in tracing
effects accurately to their distant and hidden cause. Is such a
man as this likely to be mistaken about me? Is it not far more
probable that I am mistaken in my judgment of myself?

When I look back over the past years, am I quite sure that the
strange events which I recall may not, in certain cases, be the
visionary product of my own disordered brain--realities to me,
and to no one else? What are the dreams of Mrs. Van Brandt? What
are the ghostly apparitions of her which I believe myself to have
seen? Delusions which have been the stealthy growth of years?
delusions which are leading me, by slow degrees, nearer and
nearer to madness in the end? Is it insane suspicion which has
made me so angry with the good friends who have been trying to
save my reason? Is it insane terror which sets me on escaping
from the hotel like a criminal escaping from prison?

These are the questions which torment me when I am alone in the
dead of night. My bed becomes a place of unendurable torture. I
rise and dress myself, and wait for the daylight, looking through
my open window into the street.

The summer night is short. The gray light of dawn comes to me
like a deliverance; the glow of the glorious sunrise cheers my
soul once more. Why should I wait in the room that is still
haunted by my horrible doubts of the night? I take up my
traveling-bag; I leave my letters on the sitting-room table; and
I descend the stairs to the house door. The night-porter at the
hotel is slumbering in his chair. He wakes as I pass him; and
(God help me!) he too looks as if he thought I was mad.

"Going to leave us already, sir?" he says, looking at the bag in
my hand.

Mad or sane, I am ready with my reply. I tell him I am going out
for a day in the country, and to make it a long day, I must start
early.

The man still stares at me. He asks if he shall find some one to
carry my bag. I decline to let anybody be disturbed. He inquires
if I have any messages to leave for my friend. I inform him that
I have left written messages upstairs for Sir James and the
landlord. Upon this he draws the bolts and opens the door. To the
last he looks at me as if he thought I was mad.

Was he right or wrong? Who can answer for himself? How can I
tell?

CHAPTER XXXII.

A LAST LOOK AT GREENWATER BROAD.

MY spirits rose as I walked through the bright empty streets, and
breathed the fresh morning air.

Taking my way eastward through the great city, I stopped at the
first office that I passed, and secured my place by the early
coach to Ipswich. Thence I traveled with post-horses to the
market-town which was nearest to Greenwater Broad. A walk of a
few miles in the cool evening brought me, through well-remembered
by-roads, to our old house. By the last rays of the setting sun I
looked at the familiar row of windows in front, and saw that the
shutters were all closed. Not a living creature was visible
anywhere. Not even a dog barked as I rang the great bell at the
door. The place was deserted; the house was shut up.

After a long delay, I heard heavy footsteps in the hall. An old
man opened the door.

Changed as he was, I remembered him as one of our tenants in the
by-gone time. To his astonishment, I greeted him by his name. On
his side, he tried hard to recognize me, and tried in vain. No
doubt I was the more sadly changed of the two: I was obliged to
introduce myself. The poor fellow's withered face brightened
slowly and timidly, as if he were half incapable, half afraid, of
indulging in the unaccustomed luxury of a smile. In his confusion
he bid me welcome home ag ain, as if the house had been mine.

Taking me into the little back-room which he inhabited, the old
man gave me all he had to offer--a supper of bacon and eggs and a
glass of home-brewed beer. He was evidently puzzled to understand
me when I informed him that the only object of my visit was to
look once more at the familiar scenes round my old home. But he
willingly placed his services at my disposal; and he engaged to
do his best, if I wished it, to make me up a bed for the night.

The house had been closed and the establishment of servants had
been dismissed for more than a year past. A passion for
horse-racing, developed late in life, had ruined the rich retired
tradesman who had purchased the estate at the time of our family
troubles. He had gone abroad with his wife to live on the little
income that had been saved from the wreck of his fortune; and he
had left the house and lands in such a state of neglect that no
new purchaser had thus far been found to take them. My old
friend, "now past his work," had been put in charge of the place.
As for Dermody's cottage, it was empty, like the house. I was at
perfect liberty to look over it if I liked. There was the key of
the door on the bunch with the others; and here was the old man,
with his old hat on his head, ready to accompany me wherever I
pleased to go. I declined to trouble him to accompany me or to
make up a bed in the lonely house. The night was fine, the moon
was rising. I had supped; I had rested. When I had seen what I
wanted to see, I could easily walk back to the market-town and
sleep at the inn. Taking the key in my hand, I set forth alone on
the way through the grounds which led to Dermody's cottage.

Again I followed the woodland paths along which I had once idled
so happily with my little Mary. At every step I saw something
that reminded me of her. Here was the rustic bench on which we
had sat together under the shadow of the old cedar-tree, and
vowed to be constant to each other to the end of our lives. There
was the bright little water spring, from which we drank when we
were weary and thirsty in sultry summer days, still bubbling its
way downward to the lake as cheerily as ever. As I listened to
the companionable murmur of the stream, I almost expected to see
her again, in her simple white frock and straw hat, singing to
the music of the rivulet, and freshening her nosegay of wild
flowers by dipping it in the cool water. A few steps further on
and I reached a clearing in the wood and stood on a little
promontory of rising ground which commanded the prettiest view of
Greenwater lake. A platform of wood was built out from the bank,
to be used for bathing by good swimmers who were not afraid of a
plunge into deep water. I stood on the platform and looked round
me. The trees that fringed the shore on either hand murmured
their sweet sylvan music in the night air; the moonlight trembled
softly on the rippling water. Away on my right hand I could just
see the old wooden shed that once sheltered my boat in the days
when Mary went sailing with me and worked the green flag. On my
left was the wooden paling that followed the curves of the
winding creek, and beyond it rose the brown arches of the decoy
for wild fowl, now falling to ruin for want of use. Guided by the
radiant moonlight, I could see the very spot on which Mary and I
had stood to watch the snaring of the ducks. Through the hole in
the paling before which the decoy-dog had shown himself, at
Dermody's signal, a water-rat now passed, like a little black
shadow on the bright ground, and was lost in the waters of the
lake. Look where I might, the happy by-gone time looked back in
mockery, and the voices of the past came to me with their burden
of reproach: See what your life was once! Is your life worth
living now?

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