CHAPTER XLIX. PAST AND FUTURE.
I write from memory, unassisted by notes or diaries; and I haveno distinct recollection of the length of our residence abroad. Itcertainly extended over a period of some months. Long after Eustace wasstrong enough to take the journey to London the doctors persisted inkeeping him in Paris. He had shown symptoms of weakness in one of hislungs, and his medical advisers, seeing that he prospered in the dryatmosphere of France, warned him to be careful of breathing too soon themoist air of his own country.
Thus it happened that we were still in Paris when I received my nextnews from Gleninch.
This time no letters passed on either side. To my surprise and delight,Benjamin quietly made his appearance one morning in our pretty Frenchdrawing-room. He was so preternaturally smart in his dress, and soincomprehensibly anxious (while my husband was in the way) to make usunderstand that his reasons for visiting Paris were holiday reasonsonly, that I at once suspected him of having crossed the Channel ina double character--say, as tourist in search of pleasure, when thirdpersons were present; as ambassador from Mr. Playmore, when he and I hadthe room to ourselves.
Later in the day I contrived that we should be left together, and I soonfound that my anticipations had not misled me. Benjamin had set out forParis, at Mr. Playmore's express request, to consult with me as to thefuture, and to enlighten me as to the past. He presented me with hiscredentials in the shape of a little note from the lawyer.
"There are some few points" (Mr. Playmore wrote) "which the recoveryof the letter does not seem to clear up. I have done my best, with Mr.Benjamin's assistance, to find the right explanation of these debatablematters; and I have treated the subject, for the sake of brevity, in theform of Questions and Answers. Will you accept me as interpreter, afterthe mistakes I made when you consulted me in Edinburgh? Events, I admit,have proved that I was entirely wrong in trying to prevent you fromreturning to Dexter--and partially wrong in suspecting Dexter of beingdirectly, instead of indirectly, answerable for the first Mrs. Eustace'sdeath. I frankly make my confession, and leave you to tell Mr. Benjaminwhether you think my new Catechism worthy of examination or not."
I thought his "new Catechism" (as he called it) decidedly worthy ofexamination. If you don't ag ree with this view, and if you are dyingto be done with me and my narrative, pass on to the next chapter by allmeans!
Benjamin produced the Questions and Answers; and read them to me, at myrequest, in these terms:
"Questions suggested by the letter discovered at Gleninch. First Group:Questions relating to the Diary. First Question: obtaining access to Mr.Macallan's private journal, was Miserrimus Dexter guided by any previousknowledge of its contents?
"Answer: It is doubtful if he had any such knowledge. The probabilitiesare that he noticed how carefully Mr. Macallan secured his Diary fromobservation; that he inferred therefrom the existence of dangerousdomestic secrets in the locked-up pages; and that he speculated on usingthose secrets for his own purpose when he caused the false keys to bemade.
"Second Question: To what motive are we to attribute Miserrimus Dexter'sinterference with the sheriff's officers, on the day when they seizedMr. Macallan's Diary along with his other papers?
"Answer: In replying to this question, we must first do justice toDexter himself. Infamously as we now know him to have acted, the manwas not a downright fiend. That he secretly hated Mr. Macallan, as hissuccessful rival in the affections of the woman he loved--and that hedid all he could to induce the unhappy lady to desert her husband--are,in this case, facts not to be denied. On the other hand, it is fairly tobe doubted whether he were additionally capable of permitting the friendwho trusted him to be tried for murder, through his fault, withoutmaking an effort to save the innocent man. It had naturally neveroccurred to Mr. Macallan (being guiltless of his wife's death) todestroy his Diary and his letters, in the fear that they might be usedagainst him. Until the prompt and secret action of the Fiscal took himby surprise, the idea of his being charged with the murder of hiswife was an idea which we know, from his own statement, had never evenentered his mind. But Dexter must have looked at the matter from anotherpoint of view. In his last wandering words (spoken when his mind brokedown) he refers to the Diary in these terms, 'The Diary will hang him;I won't have him hanged.' If he could have found his opportunity ofgetting at it in time--or if the sheriff's officers had not been tooquick for him--there can be no reasonable doubt that Dexter wouldhave himself destroyed the Diary, foreseeing the consequences of itsproduction in court. So strongly does he appear to have felt theseconsiderations, that he even resisted the officers in the execution oftheir duty. His agitation when he sent for Mr. Playmore to interferewas witnessed by that gentleman, and (it may not be amiss to add) wasgenuine agitation beyond dispute.
"Questions of the Second Group: relating to the Wife's Confession. FirstQuestion: What prevented Dexter from destroying the letter, when hefirst discovered it under the dead woman's pillow?
"Answer: The same motives which led him to resist the seizure of theDiary, and to give his evidence in the prisoner's favor at the Trial,induced him to preserve the letter until the verdict was known. Lookingback once more at his last words (as taken down by Mr. Benjamin), we mayinfer that if the verdict had been Guilty, he would not have hesitatedto save the innocent husband by producing the wife's confession. Thereare degrees in all wickedness. Dexter was wicked enough to suppressthe letter, which wounded his vanity by revealing him as an object forloathing and contempt--but he was not wicked enough deliberately to letan innocent man perish on the scaffold. He was capable of exposing therival whom he hated to the infamy and torture of a public accusation ofmurder; but, in the event of an adverse verdict, he shrank before thedirer cruelty of letting him be hanged. Reflect, in this connection, onwhat he must have suffered, villain as he was, when he first read thewife's confession. He had calculated on undermining her affection forher husband--and whither had his calculations led him? He had driventhe woman whom he loved to the last dreadful refuge of death by suicide!Give these considerations their due weight; and you will understand thatsome little redeeming virtue might show itself, as the result even of_this_ man's remorse.
"Second Question: What motive influenced Miserrimus Dexter's conduct,when Mrs. (Valeria) Macallan informed him that she proposed reopeningthe inquiry into the poisoning at Gleninch?
"Answer: In all probability, Dexter's guilty fears suggested to him thathe might have been watched on the morning when he secretly entered thechamber in which the first Mrs. Eustace lay dead. Feeling no scrupleshimself to restrain him from listening at doors and looking throughkeyholes, he would be all the more ready to suspect other people of thesame practices. With this dread in him, it would naturally occur to hismind that Mrs. Valeria might meet with the person who had watched him,and might hear all that the person had discovered--unless he led herastray at the outset of her investigations. Her own jealous suspicionsof Mrs. Beauly offered him the chance of easily doing this. And he wasall the readier to profit by the chance, being himself animated by themost hostile feeling toward that lady. He knew her as the enemy whodestroyed the domestic peace of the mistress of the house; he lovedthe mistress of the house--and he hated her enemy accordingly. Thepreservation of his guilty secret, and the persecution of Mrs. Beauly:there you have the greater and the lesser motive of his conduct in hisrelations with Mrs. Eustace the second!"*
*****
* Note by the writer of the Narrative:
Look back for a further illustration of this point of view to thescene at Benjamin's house (Chapter XXXV.), where Dexter, in a moment ofungovernable agitation, betrays his own secret to Valeria.
*****
Benjamin laid down his notes, and took off his spectacles.
"We have not thought it necessary to go further than this," he said. "Isthere any point you can think of that is still left unexplained?"
I reflected. There was no point of any importance left unexplained thatI could remember. But the
re was one little matter (suggested by therecent allusions to Mrs. Beauly) which I wished (if possible) to havethoroughly cleared up.
"Have you and Mr. Playmore ever spoken together on the subject of myhusband's former attachment to Mrs. Beauly?" I asked. "Has Mr. Playmoreever told you why Eustace did not marry her, after the Trial?"
"I put that question to Mr. Playmore myself," said Benjamin. "Heanswered it easily enough. Being your husband's confidential friend andadviser, he was consulted when Mr. Eustace wrote to Mrs. Beauly, afterthe Trial; and he repeated the substance of the letter, at my request.Would you like to hear what I remember of it, in my turn?"
I owned that I should like to hear it. What Benjamin thereupon told me,exactly coincided with what Miserrimus Dexter had told me--as related inthe thirtieth chapter of my narrative. Mrs. Beauly had been a witnessof the public degradation of my husband. That was enough in itself toprevent him from marrying her: He broke off with _her_ for the samereason which had led him to separate himself from _me._ Existence with awoman who knew that he had been tried for his life as a murderer was anexistence which he had not resolution enough to face. The two accountsagreed in every particular. At last my jealous curiosity was pacified;and Benjamin was free to dismiss the past from further consideration,and to approach the more critical and more interesting topic of thefuture.
His first inquiries related to Eustace. He asked if my husband had anysuspicion of the proceedings which had taken place at Gleninch.
I told him what had happened, and how I had contrived to put off theinevitable disclosure for a time.
My old friend's face cleared up as he listened to me.
"This will be good news for Mr. Playmore," he said. "Our excellentfriend, the lawyer, is sorely afraid that our discoveries maycompromise your position with your husband. On the one hand, he isnaturally anxious to spare Mr. Eustace the distress which he mustcertainly feel, if he read his first wife's confession. On the otherhand, it is impossible, in justice (as Mr. Playmore puts it) tothe unborn children of your marriage, to suppress a document whichvindicates the memory of their father from the aspersion that the ScotchVerdict might otherwise cast on it."
I listened attentively. Benjamin had touched on a trouble which wasstill secretly preying on my mind.
"How does Mr. Playmore propose to meet the difficulty?" I asked.
"He can only meet it in one way," Benjamin replied. "He proposes toseal up the original manuscript of the letter, and to add to it a plainstatement of the circumstances under which it was discovered, supportedby your signed attestation and mine, as witnesses to the fact. Thisdone, he must leave it to you to take your husband into your confidence,at your own time. It will then be for Mr. Eustace to decide whetherhe will open the inclosure--or whether he will leave it, with the sealunbroken, as an heirloom to his children, to be made public or not, attheir discretion, when they are of an age to think for themselves. Doyou consent to this, my dear? Or would you prefer that Mr. Playmoreshould see your husband, and act for you in the matter?"
I decided, without hesitation, to take the responsibility on myself.Where the question of guiding Eustace's decision was concerned, Iconsidered my influence to be decidedly superior to the influence of Mr.Playmore. My choice met with Benjamin's full approval. He arranged towrite to Edinburgh, and relieve the lawyer's anxieties by that day'spost.
The one last thing now left to be settled related to our plans forreturning to England. The doctors were the authorities on this subject.I promised to consult them about it at their next visit to Eustace.
"Have you anything more to say to me?" Benjamin inquired, as he openedhis writing-case.
I thought of Miserrimus Dexter and Ariel; and I inquired if he had heardany news of them lately. My old friend sighed, and warned me that I hadtouched on a painful subject.
"The best thing that can happen to that unhappy man is likely tohappen," he said. "The one change in him is a change that threatensparalysis. You may hear of his death before you get back to England."
"And Ariel?" I asked.
"Quite unaltered," Benjamin answered. "Perfectly happy so long as sheis with 'the Master.' From all I can hear of her, poor soul, she doesn'treckon Dexter among moral beings. She laughs at the idea of his dying;and she waits patiently, in the firm persuasion that he will recognizeher again."
Benjamin's news saddened and silenced me. I left him to his letter.
CHAPTER L.
THE LAST OF THE STORY.
In ten days more we returned to England, accompanied by Benjamin.
Mrs. Macallan's house in London offered us ample accommodation. Wegladly availed ourselves of her proposal, when she invited us to staywith her until our child was born, and our plans for the future werearranged.
The sad news from the asylum (for which Benjamin had prepared my mind atParis) reached me soon after our return to England. Miserrimus Dexter'srelease from the burden of life had come to him by slow degrees. A fewhours before he breathed his last he rallied for a while, and recognizedAriel at his bedside. He feebly pronounced her name, and looked at her,and asked for me. They thought of sending for me, but it was too late.Before the messenger could be dispatched, he said, with a touch of hisold self-importance, "Silence, all of you! my brains are weary; I amgoing to sleep." He closed his eyes in slumber, and never awoke again.So for this man too the end came mercifully, without grief or pain! Sothat strange and many-sided life--with its guilt and its misery, itsfitful flashes of poetry and humor, its fantastic gayety, cruelty, andvanity--ran its destined course, and faded out like a dream!
Alas for Ariel! She had lived for the Master--what more could she do,now the Master was gone? She could die for him.
They had mercifully allowed her to attend the funeral of MiserrimusDexter--in the hope that the ceremony might avail to convince her of hisdeath. The anticipation was not realized; she still persisted in denyingthat "the Master" had left her. They were obliged to restrain the poorcreature by force when the coffin was lowered into the grave; and theycould only remove her from the cemetery by the same means when theburial-service was over. From that time her life alternated, for afew weeks, between fits of raving delirium and intervals of lethargicrepose. At the annual ball given in the asylum, when the strictsuperintendence of the patients was in some degree relaxed, the alarmwas raised, a little before midnight, that Ariel was missing. The nursein charge had left her asleep, and had yielded to the temptation ofgoing downstairs to look at the dancing. When the woman returned toher post, Ariel was gone. The presence of strangers, and the confusionincidental to the festival, offered her facilities for escaping whichwould not have presented themselves at any other time. That night thesearch for her proved to be useless. The next morning brought with itthe last touching and terrible tidings of her. She had strayed back tothe burial-ground; and she had been found toward sunrise, dead of coldand exposure, on Miserrimus Dexter's grave. Faithful to the last, Arielhad followed the Master! Faithful to the last, Ariel had died on theMaster's grave!
Having written these sad words, I turn willingly to a less painfultheme.
Events had separated me from Major Fitz-David, after the date ofthe dinner-party which had witnessed my memorable meeting with LadyClarinda. From that time I heard little or nothing of the Major; andI am ashamed to say I had almost entirely forgotten him--when Iwas reminded of the modern Don Juan by the amazing appearance ofwedding-cards, addressed to me at my mother-in-law's house! The Majorhad settled in life at last. And, more wonderful still, the Major hadchosen as the lawful ruler of his household and himself--"the futureQueen of Song," the round-eyed, overdressed young lady with the stridentsoprano voice!
We paid our visit of congratulation in due form; and we really did feelfor Major Fitz-David.
The ordeal of marriage had so changed my gay and gallant admirerof former times that I hardly knew him again. He had lost all hispretensions to youth: he had become, hopelessly and undisguisedly, anold man. Standing behind the chair on which his imperious yo
ung wife satenthroned, he looked at her submissively between every two words that headdressed to me, as if he waited for her permission to open his lipsand speak. Whenever she interrupted him--and she did it, over andover again, without ceremony--he submitted with a senile docility andadmiration, at once absurd and shocking to see.
"Isn't she beautiful?" he said to me (in his wife's hearing!). "What afigure, and what a voice! You remember her voice? It's a loss, my dearlady, an irretrievable loss, to the operatic stage! Do you know, when Ithink what that grand creature might have done, I sometimes ask myselfif I really had any right to marry her. I feel, upon my honor I feel, asif I had committed a fraud on the public!"
As for the favored object of this quaint mixture of admiration andregret, she was pleased to receive me graciously, as an old friend.While Eustace was talking to the Major, the bride drew me aside out oftheir hearing, and explained her motives for marrying, with a candorwhich was positively shameless.
"You see we are a large family at home, quite unprovided for!" thisodious young woman whispered in my ear. "It's all very well about mybeing a 'Queen of Song' and the rest of it. Lord bless you, I have beenoften enough to the opera, and I have learned enough of my music-master,to know what it takes to make a fine singer. I haven't the patienceto work at it as those foreign women do: a parcel of brazen-facedJezebels--I hat e them! No! no! between you and me, it was a greatdeal easier to get the money by marrying the old gentleman. Here I am,provided for--and there's all my family provided for, too--and nothingto do but to spend the money. I am fond of my family; I'm a gooddaughter and sister--_I_ am! See how I'm dressed; look at the furniture:I haven't played my cards badly, have I? It's a great advantage to marryan old man--you can twist him round your little finger. Happy? Oh, yes!I'm quite happy; and I hope you are, too. Where are you living now? Ishall call soon, and have a long gossip with you. I always had a sort ofliking for you, and (now I'm as good as you are) I want to be friends."
I made a short and civil reply to this; determining inwardly that whenshe did visit me she should get no further than the house-door. I don'tscruple to say that I was thoroughly disgusted with her. When a womansells herself to a man, that vile bargain is none the less infamous (tomy mind) because it happens to be made under the sanction of the Churchand the Law.
As I sit at the desk thinking, the picture of the Major and his wifevanishes from my memory--and the last scene in my story comes slowlyinto view.
The place is my bedroom. The persons (both, if you will be pleased toexcuse them, in bed) are myself and my son. He is already three weeksold; and he is now lying fast asleep by his mother's side. My good UncleStarkweather is coming to London to baptize him. Mrs. Macallan will behis godmother; and his godfathers will be Benjamin and Mr. Playmore.I wonder whether my christening will pass off more merrily than mywedding?
The doctor has just left the house, in some little perplexity about me.He has found me reclining as usual (latterly) in my arm-chair; but onthis particular day he has detected symptoms of exhaustion, which hefinds quite unaccountable under the circumstances, and which warn him toexert his authority by sending me back to my bed.
The truth is that I have not taken the doctor into my confidence. Thereare two causes for those signs of exhaustion which have surprised mymedical attendant--and the names of them are--Anxiety and Suspense.
On this day I have at last summoned courage enough to perform thepromise which I made to my husband in Paris. He is informed, by thistime, how his wife's Confession was discovered. He knows (on Mr.Playmore's authority) that the letter may be made the means, if he sowill it, of publicly vindicating his innocence in a Court of Law. And,last and most important of all, he is now aware that the Confessionitself has been kept a sealed secret from him, out of compassionateregard for his own peace of mind, as well as for the memory of theunhappy woman who was once his wife.
These necessary disclosures I have communicated to my husband--notby word of mouth; when the time came, I shrank from speaking tohim personally of his first wife--but by a written statement of thecircumstances, taken mainly out of my letters received in Paris fromBenjamin and Mr. Playmore. He has now had ample time to read all that Ihave written to him, and to reflect on it in the retirement of hisown study. I am waiting, with the fatal letter in my hand--and mymother-in-law is waiting in the next room to me--to hear from his ownlips whether he decides to break the seal or not.
The minutes pass; and still we fail to hear his footstep on the stairs.My doubts as to which way his decision may turn affect me more and moreuneasily the longer I wait. The very possession of the letter, in thepresent excited state of my nerves, oppresses and revolts me. I shrinkfrom touching it or looking at it. I move it about restlessly from placeto place on the bed, and still I cannot keep it out of my mind. At last,an odd fancy strikes me. I lift up one of the baby's hands, and put theletter under it--and so associate that dreadful record of sin and miserywith something innocent and pretty that seems to hallow and to purifyit.
The minutes pass; the half-hour longer strikes from the clock on thechimney-piece; and at last I hear him! He knocks softly, and opens thedoor.
He is deadly pale: I fancy I can detect traces of tears on his cheeks.But no outward signs of agitation escape him as he takes his seat by myside. I can see that he has waited until he could control himself--formy sake.
He takes my hand, and kisses me tenderly.
"Valeria!" he says; "let me once more ask you to forgive what I saidand did in the bygone time. If I understand nothing else, my love, Iunderstand this: The proof of my innocence has been found; and I owe itentirely to the courage and the devotion of my wife!"
I wait a little, to enjoy the full luxury of hearing him say thosewords--to revel in the love and the gratitude that moisten his dear eyesas they look at me. Then I rouse my resolution, and put the momentousquestion on which our future depends.
"Do you wish to see the letter, Eustace?"
Instead of answering directly, he questions me in his turn.
"Have you got the letter here?"
"Yes."
"Sealed up?"
"Sealed up."
He waits a little, considering what he is going to say next before hesays it,
"Let me be sure that I know exactly what it is I have to decide," heproceeds. "Suppose I insist on reading the letter--?"
There I interrupt him. I know it is my duty to restrain myself. But Icannot do my duty.
"My darling, don't talk of reading the letter! Pray, pray spareyourself--"
He holds up his hand for silence.
"I am not thinking of myself," he says. "I am thinking of my deadwife. If I give up the public vindication of my innocence, in my ownlifetime--if I leave the seal of the letter unbroken--do you say, as Mr.Playmore says, that I shall be acting mercifully and tenderly toward thememory of my wife?"
"Oh, Eustace, there cannot be the shadow of a doubt of it!"
"Shall I be making some little atonement for any pain that I may havethoughtlessly caused her to suffer in her lifetime?"
"Yes! yes!"
"And, Valeria--shall I please You?"
"My darling, you will enchant me!"
"Where is the letter?"
"In your son's hand, Eustace."
He goes around to the other side of the bed, and lifts the baby'slittle pink hand to his lips. For a while he waits so, in sad and secretcommunion with himself. I see his mother softly open the door, and watchhim as I am watching him. In a moment more our suspense is at an end.With a heavy sigh, he lays the child's hand back again on the sealedletter; and by that one little action says (as if in words) to hisson--"I leave it to You!"
And so it ended! Not as I thought it would end; not perhaps as youthought it would end. What do we know of our own lives? What do we knowof the fulfillment of our dearest wishes? God knows--and that is best.
Must I shut up the paper? Yes. There is nothing more for you to read orfor me to say.
Except this--as a posts
cript. Don't bear hardly, good people, on thefollies and the errors of my husband's life. Abuse _me_ as much as youplease. But pray think kindly of Eustace for my sake.
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