The Legacy of Cain, Page 4

circumstances, and inquiries relating to the parents. Prevaricating replies lead

  to suspicion, and suspicion to discovery. But for the wise course which the

  Minister had decided on taking, the poor child's life might have been darkened

  by the horror of the mother's crime, and the infamy of the mother's death.

  Having quieted my friend's needless scruples by this perfectly sincere

  expression of opinion, I ventured to approach the central figure in his domestic

  circle, by means of a question relating to his wife. How had that lady received

  the unfortunate little creature, for whose appearance on the home-scene she must

  have been entirely unprepared?

  The Minister's manner showed some embarrassment; he prefaced what he had to tell

  me with praises of his wife, equally creditable no doubt to both of them. The

  beauty of the child, the pretty ways of the child, he said, fascinated the

  admirable woman at first sight. It was not to be denied that she had felt, and

  had expressed, misgivings, on being informed of the circumstances under which

  the Minister's act of mercy had been performed. But her mind was too well

  balanced to incline to this state of feeling, when her husband had addressed her

  in defense of his conduct. She then understood that the true merit of a good

  action consisted in patiently facing the sacrifices involved. Her interest in

  the new daughter being, in this way, ennobled by a sense of Christian duty,

  there had been no further difference of opinion between the married pair.

  I listened to this plausible explanation with interest, but, at the same time,

  with doubts of the lasting nature of the lady's submission to circumstances;

  suggested, perhaps, by the constraint in the Minister's manner. It was well for

  both of us when we changed the subject. He reminded me of the discouraging view

  which the Doctor had taken of the prospect before him.

  "I will not attempt to decide whether your friend is right or wrong," he said.

  "Trusting, as I do, in the mercy of God, I look hopefully to a future time when

  all that is brightest and best in the nature of my adopted child will be

  developed under my fostering care. If evil tendencies show themselves, my

  reliance will be confidently placed on pious example, on religious instruction,

  and, above all, on intercession by prayer. Repeat to your friend," he concluded,

  "what you have just heard me say. Let him ask himself if he could confront the

  uncertain future with my cheerful submission and my steadfast hope."

  He intrusted me with that message, and gave me his hand. So we parted.

  I agreed with him, I admired him; but my faith seemed to want sustaining power,

  as compared with his faith. On his own showing (as it appeared to me), there

  would be two forces in a state of conflict in the child's nature as she grew

  up--inherited evil against inculcated good. Try as I might, I failed to feel the

  Minister's comforting conviction as to which of the two would win.

  CHAPTER IX.

  THE GOVERNOR RECEIVES A VISIT.

  A FEW days after the good man had left us, I met with a serious accident, caused

  by a false step on the stone stairs of the prison.

  The long illness which followed this misfortune, and my removal afterward (in

  the interests of my recovery) to a milder climate than the climate of England,

  obliged me to confide the duties of governor of the prison to a representative.

  I was absent from my post for rather more than a year. During this interval no

  news reached me from my reverend friend.

  Having returned to the duties of my office, I thought of writing to the

  Minister. While the proposed letter was still in contemplation, I was informed

  that a lady wished to see me. She sent in her card. My visitor proved to be the

  Minister's wife.

  I observed her with no ordinary attention when she entered the room.

  Her dress was simple; her scanty light hair, so far as I could see it under her

  bonnet, was dressed with taste. The paleness of her lips, and the faded color in

  her face, suggested that she was certainly not in good health. Two peculiarities

  struck me in her personal appearance. I never remembered having seen any other

  person with such a singularly narrow and slanting forehead as this lady

  presented; and I was impressed, not at all agreeably, by the flashing shifting

  expression in her eyes. On the other hand, let me own that I was powerfully

  attracted and interested by the beauty of her voice. Its fine variety of

  compass, and its musical resonance of tone, fell with such enchantment on the

  ear, that I should have liked to put a book of poetry into her hand, and to have

  heard her read it in summer-time, accompanied by the music of a rocky stream.

  The object of her visit--so far as she explained it at the outset--appeared to

  be to offer her congratulations on my recovery, and to tell me that her husband

  had assumed the charge of a church in a large town not far from her birthplace.

  Even those commonplace words were made interesting by her delicious voice. But

  however sensitive to sweet sounds a man may be, there are limits to his capacity

  for deceiving himself--especially when he happens to be enlightened by

  experience of humanity within the walls of a prison. I had, it may be

  remembered, already doubted the lady's good temper, judging from her husband's

  over-wrought description of her virtues. Her eyes looked at me furtively; and

  her manner, gracefully self-possessed as it was, suggested that she had

  something of a delicate, or disagreeable, nature to say to me, and that she was

  at a loss how to approach the subject so as to produce the right impression on

  my mind at the outset. There was a momentary silence between us. For the sake of

  saying something, I asked how she and the Minister liked their new place of

  residence.

  "Our new place of residence," she answered, "has been made interesting by a very

  unexpected event--an event (how shall I describe it?) which has increased our

  happiness and enlarged our family circle."

  There she stopped: expecting me, as I fancied, to guess what she meant. A woman,

  and that woman a mother, might have fulfilled her anticipations. A man, and that

  man not listening attentively, was simply puzzled.

  "Pray excuse my stupidity," I said; "I don't quite understand you."

  The lady's temper looked at me out of the lady's shifting eyes, and hid itself

  again in a moment. She set herself right in my estimation by taking the whole

  blame of our little misunderstanding on her own innocent shoulders.

  "I ought to have spoken more plainly," she said. "Let me try what I can do now.

  After many years of disappointment in my married life, it has pleased Providence

  to bestow on me the happiness--the inexpressible happiness--of being a mother.

  My baby is a sweet little girl; and my one regret is that I cannot nurse her

  myself."

  My languid interest in the Minister's wife was not stimulated by the

  announcement of this domestic event.

  I felt no wish to see the "sweet little girl"; I was not even reminded of

  another example of long-deferred maternity, which had occurred within the limits

 
; of my own family circle. All my sympathies attached themselves to the sad little

  figure of the adopted child. I remembered the poor baby on my knee, enchanted by

  the ticking of my watch--I thought of her, peacefully and prettily asleep under

  the horrid shelter of the condemned cell--and it is hardly too much to say that

  my heart was heavy, when I compared her prospects with the prospects of her

  baby-rival. Kind as he was, conscientious as he was, could the Minister be

  expected to admit to an equal share in his love the child endeared to him as a

  father, and the child who merely reminded him of an act of mercy? As for his

  wife, it seemed the merest waste of time to put her state of feeling (placed

  between the two children) to the test of inquiry. I tried the useless

  experiment, nevertheless.

  "It is pleasant to think," I began, "that your other daughter--"

  She interrupted me, with the utmost gentleness: "Do you mean the child that my

  husband was foolish enough to adopt?"

  "Say rather fortunate enough to adopt," I persisted. "As your own little girl

  grows up, she will want a playfellow. And she will find a playfellow in that

  other child, whom the good Minister has taken for his own."

  "No, my dear sir--not if I can prevent it."

  The contrast between the cruelty of her intention, and the musical beauty of the

  voice which politely expressed it in those words, really startled me. I was at a

  loss how to answer her, at the very time when I ought to have been most ready to

  speak.

  "You must surely understand," she went on, "that we don't want another person's

  child, now we have a little darling of our own?"

  "Does your husband agree with you in that view?" I asked.

  "Oh dear, no! He said what you said just now, and (oddly enough) almost in the

  same words. But I don't at all despair of persuading him to change his mind--and

  you can help me."

  She made that audacious assertion with such an appearance of feeling perfectly

  sure of me, that my politeness gave way under the strain laid on it. "What do

  you mean?" I asked sharply.

  Not in the least impressed by my change of manner, she took from the pocket of

  her dress a printed paper. "You will find what I mean there," she replied--and

  put the paper into my hand.

  It was an appeal to the charitable public, occasioned by the enlargement of an

  orphan-asylum, with which I had been connected for many years. What she meant

  was plain enough now. I said nothing: I only looked at her.

  Pleased to find that I was clever enough to guess what she meant, on this

  occasion, the Minister's wife informed me that the circumstances were all in our

  favor. She still persisted in taking me into partnership--the circumstances were

  in our favor.

  "In two years more," she explained, "the child of that detestable creature who

  was hanged--do you know, I cannot even look at the little wretch without

  thinking of the gallows?--will be old enough (with your interest to help us) to

  be received into the asylum. What a relief it will be to get rid of that child!

  And how hard I shall work at canvassing for subscribers' votes! Your name will

  be a tower of strength when I use it as a reference. Pardon me--you are not

  looking so pleasantly as usual. Do you see some obstacles in our way?"

  "I see two obstacles."

  "What can they possibly be?"

  For the second time, my politeness gave way under the strain laid on it. "You

  know perfectly well," I said, "what one of the obstacles is."

  "Am I to understand that you contemplate any serious resistance on the part of

  my husband?"

  "Certainly!"

  She was unaffectedly amused by my simplicity.

  "Are you a single man?" she asked.

  "I am a widower."

  "Then your experience ought to tell you that I know every weak point in the

  Minister's character. I can tell him, on your authority, that the hateful child

  will be placed in competent and kindly hands--and I have my own sweet baby to

  plead for me. With these advantages in my favor, do you actually suppose I can

  fail to make my way of thinking his way of thinking? You must have forgotten

  your own married life! Suppose we go on to the second of your two obstacles. I

  hope it will be better worth considering than the first."

  "The second obstacle will not disappoint you," I answered; "I am the obstacle,

  this time."

  "You refuse to help me?"

  "Positively."

  "Perhaps reflection may alter your resolution?"

  "Reflection will do nothing of the kind."

  "You are rude, sir!"

  "In speaking to you, madam, I have no alternative but to speak plainly."

  She rose. Her shifting eyes, for once, looked at me steadily.

  "What sort of enemy have I made of you?" she asked. "A passive enemy who is

  content with refusing to help me? Or an active enemy who will write to my

  husband?"

  "It depends entirely," I told her, "on what your husband does. If he questions

  me about you, I shall tell him the truth."

  "And if not?"

  "In that case, I shall hope to forget that you ever favored me with a visit."

  In making this reply I was guiltless of any malicious intention. What evil

  interpretation she placed on my words it is impossible for me to say; I can only

  declare that some intolerable sense of injury hurried her into an outbreak of

  rage. Her voice, strained for the first time, lost its tuneful beauty of tone.

  "Come and see us in two years' time," she burst out--"and discover the orphan of

  the gallows in our house if you can! If your Asylum won't take her, some other

  Charity will. Ha, Mr. Governor, I deserve my disappointment! I ought to have

  remembered that you are only a jailer after all. And what is a jailer?

  Proverbially a brute. Do you hear that? A brute!"

  Her strength suddenly failed her. She dropped back into the chair from which she

  had risen, with a faint cry of pain. A ghastly pallor stole over her face. There

  was wine on the sideboard; I filled a glass. She refused to take it. At that

  time in the day, the Doctor's duties required his attendance in the prison. I

  instantly sent for him. After a moment's look at her, he took the wine out of my

  hand, and held the glass to her lips.

  "Drink it," he said. She still refused. "Drink it," he reiterated, "or you will

  die."

  That frightened her; she drank the wine. The Doctor waited for a while with his

  fingers on her pulse. "She will do now," he said.

  "Can I go?" she asked.

  "Go wherever you please, madam--so long as you don't go upstairs in a hurry."

  She smiled: "I understand you, sir--and thank you for your advice."

  I asked the Doctor, when we were alone, what made him tell her not to go

  upstairs in a hurry.

  "What I felt," he answered, "when I had my fingers on her pulse. You heard her

  say that she understood me."

  "Yes; but I don't know what she meant."

  "She meant, probably, that her own doctor had warned her as I did."

  "Something seriously wrong with her health?"

  "Yes."

  "What is it?" />
  "Heart."

  CHAPTER X.

  MISS CHANCE REAPPEARS.

  A WEEK had passed, since the Minister's wife had left me, when I received a

  letter from the Minister himself.

  After surprising me, as he innocently supposed, by announcing the birth of his

  child, he mentioned some circumstances connected with that event, which I now

  heard for the first time.

  "Within an easy journey of the populous scene of my present labors," he wrote,

  "there is a secluded country village called Low Lanes. The rector of the place

  is my wife's brother. Before the birth of our infant, he had asked his sister to

  stay for a while at his house; and the doctor thought she might safely be

  allowed to accept the invitation. Through some error in the customary

  calculations, as I suppose, the child was born unexpectedly at the rectory; and

  the ceremony of baptism was performed at the church, under circumstances which I

  am not able to relate within the limits of a letter: Let me only say that I

  allude to this incident without any sectarian bitterness of feeling--for I am no

  enemy to the Church of England. You have no idea what treasures of virtue and

  treasures of beauty maternity has revealed in my wife's sweet nature. Other

  mothers, in her proud position, might find their love cooling toward the poor

  child whom we have adopted. But my household is irradiated by the presence of an

  angel, who gives an equal share in her affections to the two little ones alike."

  In this semi-hysterical style of writing, the poor man unconsciously told me how

  cunningly and how cruelly his wife was deceiving him.

  I longed to exhibit that wicked woman in her true character--but what could I

  do? She must have been so favored by circumstances as to be able to account for

  her absence from home, without exciting the slightest suspicion of the journey

  which she had really taken, if I declared in my reply to the Minister's letter

  that I had received her in my rooms, and if I repeated the conversation that had

  taken place, what would the result be? She would find an easy refuge in positive

  denial of the truth--and, in that case, which of us would her infatuated husband

  believe?

  The one part of the letter which I read with some satisfaction was the end of

  it.

  I was here informed that the Minister's plans for concealing the parentage of

  his adopted daughter had proved to be entirely successful. The members of the

  new domestic household believed the two children to be infant-sisters. Neither

  was there any danger of the adopted child being identified (as the oldest child

  of the two) by consultation of the registers.

  Before he left our town, the Minister had seen for himself that no baptismal

  name had been added, after the birth of the daughter of the murderess had been

  registered, and that no entry of baptism existed in the registers kept in places

  of worship. He drew the inference--in all probability a true inference,

  considering the characters of the parents--that the child had never been

  baptized; and he performed the ceremony privately, abstaining, for obvious

  reasons, from adding her Christian name to the imperfect register of her birth.

  "I am not aware," he wrote, "whether I have, or have not, committed an offense

  against the Law. In any case, I may hope to have made atonement by obedience to

  the Gospel."

  Six weeks passed, and I heard from my reverend friend once more.

  His second letter presented a marked contrast to the first. It was written in

  sorrow and anxiety, to inform me of an alarming change for the worse in his

  wife's health. I showed the letter to my medical colleague. After reading it he

  predicted the event that might be expected, in two words:--Sudden death.

  On the next occasion when I heard from the Minister, the Doctor's grim reply

  proved to be a prophecy fulfilled.

  When we address expressions of condolence to bereaved friends, the principles of

  popular hypocrisy sanction indiscriminate lying as a duty which we owe to the