2. CHAPTER II
'It is one fact, sir, that I am a widow,'
she said.
'It is
another fact, that I am going to be married again.'
There she paused, and smiled at some thought that occurred to her.
Doctor Wybrow was not favourably impressed by her smile — there was
something at once sad and cruel in it. It came slowly, and it went away
suddenly. He began to doubt whether he had been wise in acting on his
first impression. His mind reverted to the commonplace patients and the
discoverable maladies that were waiting for him, with a certain tender
regret.
The lady went on.
'My approaching marriage,'
she said,
'has one embarrassing
circumstance connected with it. The gentleman whose wife I am to be, was
engaged to another lady when he happened to meet with me, abroad: that
lady, mind, being of his own blood and family, related to him as his
cousin. I have innocently robbed her of her lover, and destroyed her
prospects in life. Innocently, I say — because he told me nothing of his
engagement until after I had accepted him. When we next met in England
— and when there was danger, no doubt, of the affair coming to my
knowledge — he told me the truth. I was naturally indignant. He had his
excuse ready; he showed me a letter from the lady herself, releasing him
from his engagement. A more noble, a more high-minded letter, I never
read in my life. I cried over it — I who have no tears in me for sorrows of
my own! If the letter had left him any hope of being forgiven, I would
have positively refused to marry him. But the firmness of it — without
anger, without a word of reproach, with heartfelt wishes even for his
happiness — the firmness of it, I say, left him no hope. He appealed to my
compassion; he appealed to his love for me. You know what women are. I
too was soft-hearted — I said, Very well: yes! In a week more (I tremble as I
think of it) we are to be married.'
She did really tremble — she was obliged to pause and compose herself,
before she could go on. The Doctor, waiting for more facts, began to fear
that he stood committed to a long story.
'Forgive me for reminding you
that I have suffering persons waiting to see me,'
he said.
'The sooner
you can come to the point, the better for my patients and for me.'
The strange smile — at once so sad and so cruel — showed itself again on
the lady's lips.
'Every word I have said is to the point,'
she
answered.
'You will see it yourself in a moment more.'
She resumed her narrative.
'Yesterday — you need fear no long story, sir; only yesterday — I was
among the visitors at one of your English luncheon parties. A lady, a
perfect stranger to me, came in late — after we had left the table, and had
retired to the drawing-room. She happened to take a chair near me; and we
were presented to each other. I knew her by name, as she knew me. It was
the woman whom I had robbed of her lover, the woman who had written
the noble letter. Now listen! You were impatient with me for not interesting
you in what I said just now. I said it to satisfy your mind that I had no
enmity of feeling towards the lady, on my side. I admired her, I felt for
her — I had no cause to reproach myself. This is very important, as you will
presently see. On her side, I have reason to be assured that the
circumstances had been truly explained to her, and that she understood I
was in no way to blame. Now, knowing all these necessary things as you do,
explain to me, if you can, why, when I rose and met that woman's eyes
looking at me, I turned cold from head to foot, and shuddered, and
shivered, and knew what a deadly panic of fear was, for the first time in
my life.'
The Doctor began to feel interested at last.
'Was there anything remarkable in the lady's personal appearance?'
he asked.
'Nothing whatever!'
was the vehement reply.
'Here is the true
description of her: — The ordinary English lady; the clear cold blue eyes,
the fine rosy complexion, the inanimately polite manner, the large
good-humoured mouth, the too plump cheeks and chin: these, and nothing
more.'
'Was there anything in her expression, when you first looked at her,
that took you by surprise?'
'There was natural curiosity to see the woman who had been preferred
to her; and perhaps some astonishment also, not to see a more engaging
and more beautiful person; both those feelings restrained within the limits
of good breeding, and both not lasting for more than a few moments — so
far as I could see. I say, "so far," because the horrible agitation that she
communicated to me disturbed my judgment. If I could have got to the
door, I would have run out of the room, she frightened me so! I was not
even able to stand up — I sank back in my chair; I stared horror-struck at
the calm blue eyes that were only looking at me with a gentle surprise. To
say they affected me like the eyes of a serpent is to say nothing. I felt her
soul in them, looking into mine — looking, if such a thing can be,
unconsciously to her own mortal self. I tell you my impression, in all its
horror and in all its folly! That woman is destined (without knowing it
herself) to be the evil genius of my life. Her innocent eyes saw hidden
capabilities of wickedness in me that I was not aware of myself, until I felt
them stirring under her look. If I commit faults in my life to come — if I
am even guilty of crimes — she will bring the retribution, without (as I
firmly believe) any conscious exercise of her own will. In one indescribable
moment I felt all this — and I suppose my face showed it. The good artless
creature was inspired by a sort of gentle alarm for me. "I am afraid the heat
of the room is too much for you; will you try my smelling bottle?" I heard her
say those kind words; and I remember nothing else — I fainted. When I
recovered my senses, the company had all gone; only the lady of the house
was with me. For the moment I could say nothing to her; the dreadful
impression that I have tried to describe to you came back to me with the
coming back of my life. As soon I could speak, I implored her to tell me
the whole truth about the woman whom I had supplanted. You see, I had
a faint hope that her good character might not really be deserved, that her
noble letter was a skilful piece of hypocrisy — in short, that she secretly
hated me, and was cunning enough to hide it. No! the lady had been her
friend from her girlhood, was as familiar with her as if they had been
sisters — knew her positively to be as good, as innocent, as incapable of
hating anybody, as the greatest saint that ever lived. My one last hope, that
I had only felt an ordinary forewarning of danger in the presence of an
ordinary enemy, was a hope destroyed for ever. There was one more effort
I could make, and I made it. I went next to the man whom I am to marry.
I implored him to release me from my promise. He refused. I declared I
would break my engagement. He showed me letters from his sisters, letters
from his brothers, and his dear friends — all entreating him to think again
before he made me his wife; all repeating reports of me in Paris, Vienna,
and London, which are so many vile lies. "If you refuse to marry me," he
said, "you admit that these reports are true — you admit that you are afraid
to face society in the character of my wife." What could I answer? There
was no contradicting him — he was plainly right: if I persisted in my
refusal, the utter destruction of my reputation would be the result. I
consented to let the wedding take place as we had arranged it — and left
him. The night has passed. I am here, with my fixed conviction — that
innocent woman is ordained to have a fatal influence over my life. I am here
with my one question to put, to the one man who can answer it. For the last
time, sir, what am I — a demon who has seen the avenging angel? or only a
poor mad woman, misled by the delusion of a deranged mind?'
Doctor Wybrow rose from his chair, determined to close the interview.
He was strongly and painfully impressed by what he had heard. The
longer he had listened to her, the more irresistibly the conviction of the
woman's wickedness had forced itself on him. He tried vainly to think of
her as a person to be pitied — a person with a morbidly sensitive
imagination, conscious of the capacities for evil which lie dormant in us all,
and striving earnestly to open her heart to the counter-influence of her own
better nature; the effort was beyond him. A perverse instinct in him said,
as if in words, Beware how you believe in her!
'I have already given you my opinion,'
he said.
'There is no
sign of your intellect being deranged, or being likely to be deranged, that
medical science can discover — as I understand it. As for the
impressions you have confided to me, I can only say that yours is a case (as I
venture to think) for spiritual rather than for medical advice. Of one thing
be assured: what you have said to me in this room shall not pass out of it.
Your confession is safe in my keeping.'
She heard him, with a certain dogged resignation, to the end.
'Is that all?'
she asked.
'That is all,'
he answered.
She put a little paper packet of money on the table.
'Thank you, sir.
There is your fee.'
With those words she rose. Her wild black eyes looked upward, with an
expression of despair so defiant and so horrible in its silent agony that the
Doctor turned away his head, unable to endure the sight of it. The bare
idea of taking anything from her — not money only, but anything even that
she had touched — suddenly revolted him. Still without looking at her, he
said,
'Take it back; I don't want my fee.'
She neither heeded nor heard him. Still looking upward, she said slowly
to herself,
'Let the end come. I have done with the struggle: I
submit.'
She drew her veil over her face, bowed to the Doctor, and left the
room.
He rang the bell, and followed her into the hall. As the servant closed
the door on her, a sudden impulse of curiosity — utterly unworthy of him,
and at the same time utterly irresistible — sprang up in the Doctor's mind.
Blushing like a boy, he said to the servant,
'Follow her home, and find out
her name.'
For one moment the man looked at his master, doubting if his
own ears had not deceived him. Doctor Wybrow looked back at him in
silence. The submissive servant knew what that silence meant — he took his
hat and hurried into the street.
The Doctor went back to the consulting-room. A sudden revulsion of
feeling swept over his mind. Had the woman left an infection of wickedness
in the house, and had he caught it? What devil had possessed him to
degrade himself in the eyes of his own servant? He had behaved infamously —
he had asked an honest man, a man who had served him faithfully for
years, to turn spy! Stung by the bare thought of it, he ran out into the hall
again, and opened the door. The servant had disappeared; it was too late to
call him back. But one refuge from his contempt for himself was now open
to him — the refuge of work. He got into his carriage and went his rounds
among his patients.
If the famous physician could have shaken his own reputation, he
would have done it that afternoon. Never before had he made himself so
little welcome at the bedside. Never before had he put off until to-morrow
the prescription which ought to have been written, the opinion which
ought to have been given, to-day. He went home earlier than usual —
unutterably dissatisfied with himself.
The servant had returned. Dr. Wybrow was ashamed to question him.
The man reported the result of his errand, without waiting to be asked.
'The lady's name is the Countess Narona. She lives at — '
Without waiting to hear where she lived, the Doctor acknowledged the
all-important discovery of her name by a silent bend of the head, and
entered his consulting-room. The fee that he had vainly refused still lay in
its little white paper covering on the table. He sealed it up in an envelope;
addressed it to the 'Poor-box' of the nearest police-court; and, calling the
servant in, directed him to take it to the magistrate the next morning.
Faithful to his duties, the servant waited to ask the customary question,
'Do you dine at home to-day, sir?'
After a moment's hesitation he said,
'No: I shall dine at the club.'
The most easily deteriorated of all the moral qualities is the quality
called 'conscience.' In one state of a man's mind, his conscience is the
severest judge that can pass sentence on him. In another state, he and his
conscience are on the best possible terms with each other in the comfortable
capacity of accomplices. When Doctor Wybrow left his house for the
second time, he did not even attempt to conceal from himself that his sole
object, in dining at the club, was to hear what the world said of the
Countess Narona.