 | CHAPTER XXXIX.
MAGDALEN AND THE MYSTERY. Millbank, or, Roger Irving's ward |  |
39. CHAPTER XXXIX.
MAGDALEN AND THE MYSTERY.
A MYSTERY no longer, but a living, breathing, panting
woman, with wild, rolling eyes, masses of jet-black
hair streaked with gray streaming down her back, and
long white arms and hands, which beat the air helplessly as she
tried to escape from the firm grasp of her attendant, Mrs.
Jenks. It was Magdalen's first close contact with a maniac,
with which the woman greeted her, and the desperate
spring she made toward the spot where she was standing. For
an instant she was tempted to flee from the room, but Mrs.
Jenks had her patient under control by virtue of superior
strength. There was no escaping from the vice-like grasp of
her strong arms, and so Magdalen stood still and gazed spell-bound
upon the terrible spectacle.
“Come nearer and see what effect your speaking to her will
have. She has asked for you all night; she will not hurt you,”
Mrs. Jenks said, and Magdalen went up to the poor, restless,
tossing creature, and sitting down upon the bed took in her
own the hot hand which was extended toward her.
“Can I do anything for you, Mrs. Grey?” she said, softly
caressing the wasted hand which held hers so tightly.
Quick as lightning a gleam of anger shot from the black
eyes as the woman replied:
“Don't insult me by calling me Mrs. Grey. That name has
been a curse to me from the moment I bore it. Call me Laura,
or nothing!”
“Well, then, Laura, can I do anything to make you better?”
Magdalen said, and the woman replied, “Yes, stay with me always,
and sing as you did last night when I thought the angels
called me; and put your hand on my head; — feel how hot it is.
There is a lost baby's soul in there, burning up for my sin.”
She carried Magdalen's hand to her forehead, which was hot
with fever and excitement, and Magdalen could feel the blood
throbbing through the swollen veins.
“Poor Laura,” she said, “poor, sick woman! I am so sorry
for you. I would have come before if I had known you wanted
me.”
“Yes, but don't waste time in words. I've had a plenty of
those all my life. Sing! sing! sing! — that is what I want,” interrupted
the crazy woman, and sitting on the bed, with the hot
hand grasping hers, Magdalen tried to think what she could
sing that would soothe her excited patient.
There was a trembling in her joints and a choking sensation
in her throat which seemed to preclude the possibility of her
singing, but she made a great effort to control herself, and at
last began the beautiful hymn, “Peace, troubled soul,” her
voice growing in steadiness and sweetness and volume as she
saw the effect it had upon poor Laura, whose eyes grew soft
and gentle, and finally filled with tears, which rolled in great
drops down her sunken cheeks.
Mrs. Jenks had relaxed her vigilance now, and Laura lay perfectly
still, listening with rapt attention to the song, and keeping
her eyes fixed upon Magdalen's face, as if there were some
spell to hold them there.
“Who are you?” she asked, when the song had ceased.
“Where did you come from and what is your name?”
I came to live with Alice. You know Alice,” Magdalen
said, — “she is your daughter.”
“Yes, one of them; but not that one, over there in the
cradle. Please give it a little jog. I can't have my baby waking
up and crying, for that disturbs Arthur, and he might send it
away to goat's milk and a wet nurse. Give it a jog, please.”
She pointed to the head of her bed, and for the first time
Magdalen observed a pretty little rosewood crib, with dainty
pillow-cases, ruffled and fluted, and snowy Marseilles quilt,
spotlessly white and clean. But there was no infant's head upon
the pillow, no little hands outside the spread, or sound of infant's
breathing.
The crib was empty, and Magdalen glanced inquiringly at
Mrs. Jenks, who said:
“You may as well rock it first as last. She will give you no
peace till you do. It's a fancy of hers that there's a baby
there, and she sometimes rocks it day and night. She is always
quiet when she is on that tack, but sometimes the baby gets
out of the cradle into her head, and then there is no pacifying
her. Her tantrum is over now, and, if you are willing, I'll leave
her with you a few moments. I shan't be out of hearing. My
room is across the hall.”
She was evidently anxious to get away; and Magdalen, who
would not confess to any fear, was left alone with the crazy
woman. She had drawn the crib nearer to her, and with her
foot upon the rocker kept it in motion, while Laura commenced
a low, cooing sort of lullaby of “Hush, my darling!
mother's near you!”
The novelty of her situation, and the wakefulness of the previous
night, began to have a strange effect on Magdalen, and, as
she rocked the cradle to the sound of that low, mournful music,
it seemed to her as if it were her own self she was rocking, herself
far back in that past of which she knew so little. There was
a dizzy feeling in her head, a humming in her ears, and for a few
moments she felt almost as crazy as the woman at her side. But
as she became more accustomed to the room and the situation,
she grew calmer and less nervous, and could think what it was
better to reply to the strange questions her companion sometimes
put to her.
“If a person killed something and didn't know it, and didn't
mean to, and didn't know as they had killed it, would God call
them a murderer, as He did Cain?”
This was one question, and Magdalen replied at random,
that in such a case it was no murder, and God would not so
consider it.
“Then why has He branded me here in my head, where it
keeps thump, thump! just like the beating of a drum, and
where it is so hot and snarled?” Laura asked. Then, before
Magdalen could reply, she continued: “I did not mean to kill
it, and I don't think I did. I put it somewhere, or gave it to
somebody; but the more I try to think, the more it thumps,
and thumps, and I can't make it out; only I didn't; didn't
truly mean to kill it. Oh, baby! No, no! I didn't! I didn't!”
She was sobbing in a pitiful kind of way, and Magdalen
moved her position so that she could take the poor, tired,
“twisted” head upon her bosom, while she soothed and comforted
the moaning woman, softly smoothing her tangled hair,
up out of her way.
“It will look nicer so,” she said; and, as Laura made no objection,
she brought the brush and comb from a little basket on
the bureau, and then set herself to the task of combing out the
matted hair, which had been sorely neglected since Alice went
away.
“Allie will be glad to know I am so nice. She likes me
neat and tidy, but a woman with a child to tend cannot always
keep herself as she would,” Laura said, when the hair-dressing
was ended and Magdalen had buttoned her night-dress, and
thrown around her a crimson shawl which hung across the bed.
The woman herself was rocking the cradle now, and signaling
Magdalen to be quiet, for baby was waking up. To her
there was a living, breathing child in that empty cradle, and
as her warning “sh-sh” rang through the room, Magdalen shuddered
involuntarily, and felt a kind of terror of that crib, as if
it held a goblin child. Suddenly Mrs. Grey turned to her and
said:
“You did not tell me your name, or else I have forgotten.”
“My name is Magdalen Lennox,” was the reply, and instantly
the black eyes flashed a keen look of curiosity upon the young
girl, who winced a little, but never turned her own eyes away
from those confronting her so fixedly.
“Magdalen,” the woman said, “Magdalen. That brings it
back to me in part. I remember now. That was the name I
gave her when she was christened, because I thought it would
please Arthur, who was over the sea. He wanted to call Alice
that, but I was hot, and angry, and worried in those days, and
my temper ran very high, and I would not suffer it, for out of
Magdalen went seven devils, you know, and out of his Magdalen
went fourteen, I'm sure. She was a beautiful woman, I
heard, and he loved her better than he did me, — loved her first
when he was young. I found it out when it was too late. His
mother told me so one day when she couldn't think of anything
else to torment me with. The Duchess of Beechwood! She's
Tower of Babel. She was a dreadful woman, — she and Clarissa
both; that was her daughter, and they just worried and
tormented and hunted me down, until I went away.”
Magdalen was gaining some insight into the family history
of the Greys, though how much of what she heard was true she
could not tell. One thing, however, struck her forcibly. She
knew that poor Jessie Morton's second name was Magdalen,
and from some source she had heard that Mr. Grey used frequently
to call her by that name, which he preferred to Jessie,
and when Mrs. Grey alluded to the beautiful woman whom her
husband had loved better than his wife, she felt at once that it
was Jessie to whom reference was made, — Jessie who had unwittingly
made trouble in this family, — Jessie for whom the
father would have called Alice, his first born, and for whom it
would seem a later child was subsequently named. She wanted
so much to ask questions herself, but a natural delicacy prevented
her. She had no right to take advantage of a lunatic's
ravings and pry into family matters, so she sat very quiet for a
few moments watching her patient, who said at last:
“Yes, that brings it back in part. St. Luke's Church, and
mother, and Mr. and Mrs. Storms were sponsors, and we called
one Madeline, and the other Magdalen after the woman that
Arthur liked the best. Did you ever see her?”
“I've seen her picture. I lived in her house,” Magdalen
replied:
“Tell me of her. Was she prettier than I am? — though
how should you know that, when you've only seen the gray-haired,
wrinkled, yellow hag they keep shut up so close at
Beechwood? But I was handsome once, years ago, when
mother made those shirts for Arthur and I did them up, and he
came before they were done and sat by the table and watched
me and said my hands were too small and pretty to handle that
heavy iron, — they would look better with rings and diamonds,
and he guessed he must get me some. I wore a pink gingham
dress that day, and hated ironing and sewing after that, and
boarded, and I took a dollar and bought a ring and put it on
my finger, and the next time he came he laughed and held my
hand while he looked at it, and told me he would get a better
one if I would go with him to the jeweller's. Mother would
not let me, and she had high words with him and ordered him
away and called him a hard name, — a villain, who only wanted
to ruin me. I was sick ever so long after that with something
in my head, though not like what's got into it since. Arthur
sent me flowers and fruit and little notes, and came to the door
to inquire, but still mother would not believe him true. When
I was most well he wrote a letter asking me to meet him, and
I ran away from mother and was married, and had the rings at
last, — a diamond and emerald and the plain gold one, — and a
white satin gown, and we travelled far and wide, and I looked
like a queen when he brought me here to the Duchess and
Lady Clarissa, and then to Penelope, who lived in New York,
and wasn't quite so bad, though she snubbed me some. I was
not as happy as I thought I should be, for Arthur stayed so
much in New York, and his mother was so cold and grand and
stiff, that I lay awake nights to hate her, and when Alice was
born the Duchess sent her out to nurse, because I was low-bred
and vulgar, and Arthur got sick of me and stayed in New York
more than ever, and left me to fight my way alone with the
dragons, and I got so at last that I did fight good.”
Her eyes were flashing fiercely, and Magdalen, who had listened
breathlessly to the strange story, could readily imagine
just how that black-eyed, high-spirited creature did fight, as she
termed it, when once she was fairly roused to action. There
were rage and passion delineated in every feature now, and her
face was a bright purple as she hurled her invectives against
Arthur's mother and sister Clarissa, who, it would seem, had
persecuted her so sorely, and who were now “lying under the
snow.”
“They gave me no peace day or night. They took Allie
away. They turned Arthur against me; they said I was low
— made so by temper, — and that I would not stand, so I went
away; and Arthur went East and I West to mother, and the
baby was born, which Arthur knew nothing about, and mother
died, and the other baby died, and I was alone, and went awhile
to Mrs. Storms; and then I drifted back here. I don't know
how, nor when, nor where, nor what happened after I left
Mrs. Storms only I lost baby, but I didn't kill it, Heaven
knows I didn't. I lost it, but Providence sent it back, so I
can see it, though nobody else does, and it's there in the cradle,
and I've rocked it ever since, and worn the carpet through.
Don't you see the white spots? Those are baby's footprints.”
She leaned over the side of the bed and pointed to the
breadth of carpet which was worn white and threadbare with
the constant motion of the crib. It was not the first carpet she
had worn out, nor the second, for “she had to rock to keep
the baby quiet, even if it did annoy Arthur so,” she said; and
Magdalen's heart ached for the poor, demented creature, while
in spite of all his faults she pitied the man who was designated
as Arthur, and who must suffer fearfully with such a wife.
Laura's story, so long as it pertained to her girlhood and early
married life, had been quite connected and reasonable, and
Magdalen gained a tolerably clear understanding of the matter.
Arthur Grey had accidentally found this woman, who when
young must have been as beautiful as she was poor and lowly
born. The obstacles thrown in his way had only increased his
passion, which finally outweighed every other consideration,
and led to a clandestine marriage, wholly distasteful to the
proud mother and sisters, who had so violently opposed poo
Jessie Morton. That they had made Laura's life very unhappy;
that the fickle husband, grown weary of his unsophisticated
wife, had cruelly neglected her, until at last in desperation
she had gone away, Magdalen gathered from the story told
so rapidly; but after that she failed to comprehend what she
heard. The baby which Laura said had died, and the one
with Mrs. Storms as sponsor, were enigmas which she could
not solve. It struck her as a strange coincidence that she herself
and the lost baby of the Greys should have borne the same
name, and for the same woman; and she wondered what it
was about that child which had affected the mother so strangely
and put such wild fancies into her head. Her hand had
dropped from the cradle now, the rocking had ceased, and the
tired, worn-out woman, who had tossed and shrieked and struggled
the livelong night, was falling asleep. Once, as her heavy
lids began to droop, she started up, and reaching for Magdalen's
hand, said to her, “Don't leave me! I am better with
you here. Stay and sing more songs to me about the troubled
soul. It makes me feel as if I was in Heaven.”
She held Magdalen's hand in her own, and Magdalen sang
to her again, while the tears rained from Laura's eyes, and
rolled down her faded cheeks.
“Let me cry; it does me good,” she said, when Magdalen
tried to soothe her. “It cools me, and my head seems to
grow clearer about the baby. It will come to me by and by,
what I did with her. Oh, my child, my darling, God has
surely kept her safe somewhere.”
She was talking very low and slowly, and Magdalen watched
her until the lips ceased to move, and the long eyelashes still
wet with tears rested upon the flushed cheeks. She was asleep
at last, and Magdalen, looking at her, knew that she must have
been beautiful in her early girlhood when Arthur Grey had won
her for his bride. Traces of beauty she had yet, in the regularity
of her features, her well-shaped head, her abundant hair,
with just a little ripple in it, her white forehead, and even teeth
which showed no signs of decay. She was not old either, and
Magdalen thought how young she must have been when she
became a wife.
“Poor woman! her life has been a failure,” she said, as she
drew the covering around the shoulders and over the hands, on
shining.
Mrs. Jenks seemed in no hurry to resume her post, and
weary from her wakefulness of the previous night, Magdalen
settled herself in the large easy chair by the bed, and was soon
so fast asleep, that until twice repeated she did not hear
Honora, who came to tell her that breakfast was waiting for
her.
| CHAPTER XXXIX.
MAGDALEN AND THE MYSTERY. Millbank, or, Roger Irving's ward | |