The Legacy of Cain, Page 5

dead--no matter what their lives may have been--because they are dead. Within my

  own little sphere, I have always been silent, when I could not offer to

  afflicted persons expressions of sympathy which I honestly felt. To have

  condoled with the Minister on the loss that he had sustained by the death of a

  woman, self-betrayed to me as shamelessly deceitful, and pitilessly determined

  to reach her own cruel ends, would have been to degrade myself by telling a

  deliberate lie. I expressed in my answer all that an honest man naturally feels,

  when he is writing to a friend in distress; carefully abstaining from any

  allusion to the memory of his wife, or to the place which her death had left

  vacant in his household. My letter, I am sorry to say, disappointed and offended

  him. He wrote to me no more, until years had passed, and time had exerted its

  influence in producing a more indulgent frame of mind. These letters of a later

  date have been preserved, and will probably be used, at the right time, for

  purposes of explanation with which I may be connected in the future.

  . . . . . . .

  The correspondent whom I had now lost was succeeded by a gentleman entirely

  unknown to me.

  Those reasons which induced me to conceal the names of persons, while I was

  relating events in the prison, do not apply to correspondence with a stranger

  writing from another place. I may, therefore, mention that Mr. Dunboyne, of

  Fairmount, on the west coast of Ireland, was the writer of the letter now

  addressed to me. He proved, to my surprise, to be one of the relations whom the

  Prisoner under sentence of death had not cared to see, when I offered her the

  opportunity of saying farewell. Mr. Dunboyne was a brother-in-law of the

  murderess. He had married her sister.

  His wife, he informed me, had died in childbirth, leaving him but one

  consolation--a boy, who already recalled all that was brightest and best in his

  lost mother. The father was naturally anxious that the son should never become

  acquainted with the disgrace that had befallen the family.

  The letter then proceeded in these terms:

  "I heard yesterday, for the first time, by means of an old newspaper-cutting

  sent to me by a friend, that the miserable woman who suffered the ignominy of

  public execution has left an infant child. Can you tell me what has become of

  the orphan? If this little girl is, as I fear, not well provided for, I only do

  what my wife would have done if she had lived, by offering to make the child's

  welfare my especial care. I am willing to place her in an establishment well

  known to me, in which she will be kindly treated, well educated, and fitted to

  earn her own living honorably in later life.

  "If you feel some surprise at finding that my good intentions toward this

  ill-fated niece of mine do not go to the length of receiving her as a member of

  my own family, I beg to submit some considerations which may perhaps weigh with

  you as they have weighed with me.

  "In the first place, there is at least a possibility--however carefully I might

  try to conceal it--that the child's parentage would sooner or later be

  discovered. In the second place (and assuming that the parentage had been

  successfully concealed), if this girl and my boy grew up together, there is

  another possibility to be reckoned with: they might become attached to each

  other. Does the father live who would allow his son ignorantly to marry the

  daughter of a convicted murderess? I should have no alternative but to part them

  cruelly by revealing the truth." The letter ended with some complimentary

  expressions addressed to myself. And the question was: how ought I to answer it?

  My correspondent had strongly impressed me in his favor; I could not doubt that

  he was an honorable man. But the interest of the Minister in keeping his own

  benevolent action secure from the risk of discovery--increased as that interest

  was by the filial relations of the two children toward him, now publicly

  established--had, as I could not doubt, the paramount claim on me. The

  absolutely safe course to take was to admit no one, friend or stranger, to our

  confidence. I replied, expressing sincere admiration of Mr. Dunboyne's motives,

  and merely informing him that the child was already provided for.

  After that, I heard no more of the Irish gentleman.

  It is perhaps hardly necessary to add that I kept the Minister in ignorance of

  my correspondence with Mr. Dunboyne. I was too well acquainted with my friend's

  sensitive and self-tormenting nature to let him know that a relative of the

  murderess was living, and was aware that she had left a child.

  A last event remains to be related, before I close these pages.

  During the year of which I am now writing, our Chaplain added one more to the

  many examples that I have seen of his generous readiness to serve his friends.

  He had arranged to devote his annual leave of absence to a tour among the

  English Lakes, when he received a letter from a clergyman resident in London,

  whom he had known from the time when they had been school-fellows. This old

  friend wrote under circumstances of the severest domestic distress, which made

  it absolutely necessary that he should leave London for a while. Having failed

  to find a representative who could relieve him of his clerical duties, he

  applied to the Chaplain to recommend a clergyman who might be in a position to

  help him. My excellent colleague gave up his holiday-plans without hesitation,

  and went to London himself.

  On his return, I asked if he had seen anything of some acquaintances of his and

  of mine, who were then visitors to the metropolis. He smiled significantly when

  he answered me.

  "I have a card to deliver from an acquaintance whom you have not mentioned," he

  said; "and I rather think it will astonish you."

  It simply puzzled me. When he gave me the card, this is what I found printed on

  it:

  "MRS. TENERUGGEN (OF SOUTH BEVELAND)."

  "Well?" said the Chaplain.

  "Well," I answered; "I never even heard of Mrs. Tenbruggen, of South Beveland.

  Who is she?"

  "I married the lady to a foreign gentleman, only last week, at my friend's

  church," the Chaplain replied. "Perhaps you may remember her maiden name?"

  He mentioned the name of the dangerous creature who had first presented herself

  to me, in charge of the Prisoner's child--otherwise Miss Elizabeth Chance. The

  reappearance of this woman on the scene--although she was only represented by

  her card--caused me a feeling of vague uneasiness, so contemptibly superstitious

  in its nature that I now remember it with shame. I asked a stupid question:

  "How did it happen?"

  "In the ordinary course of such things," my friend said. "They were married by

  license, in their parish church. The bridegroom was a fine tall man, with a bold

  eye and a dashing manner. The bride and I recognized each other directly. When

  Miss Chance had become Mrs. Tenbruggen, she took me aside, and gave me her card.

  'Ask the Governor to accept it,' she said, 'in remembrance of the time when he

  took me for a nursemaid. Tell him
I am married to a Dutch gentleman of high

  family. If he ever comes to Holland, we shall be glad to see him in our

  residence at South Beveland.' There is her message to you, repeated word for

  word."

  "I am glad she is going to live out of England."

  "Why? Surely you have no reason to fear her?"

  "None whatever."

  "You are thinking, perhaps, of somebody else?"

  I was thinking of the Minister; but it seemed to be safest not to say so.

  -------

  My pen is laid aside, and my many pages of writing have been sent to their

  destination. What I undertook to do, is now done. To take a metaphor from the

  stage--the curtain falls here on the Governor and the Prison.

  ----

  Second Period: 1875.

  THE GIRLS AND THE JOURNALS.

  ----

  CHAPTER XI.

  HELENA'S DIARY.

  WE both said good-night, and went up to our room with a new object in view. By

  our father's advice we had resolved on keeping diaries, for the first time in

  our lives, and had pledged ourselves to begin before we went to bed.

  Slowly and silently and lazily, my sister sauntered to her end of the room and

  seated herself at her writing-table. On the desk lay a nicely bound book, full

  of blank pages. The word "Journal" was printed on it in gold letters, and there

  was fitted to the covers a bright brass lock and key. A second journal, exactly

  similar in every respect to the first, was placed on the writing-table at my end

  of the room. I opened my book. The sight of the blank leaves irritated me; they

  were so smooth, so spotless, so entirely ready to do their duty. I took too deep

  a dip of ink, and began the first entry in my diary by making a blot. This was

  discouraging. I got up, and looked out of window.

  "Helena!"

  My sister's voice could hardly have addressed me in a more weary tone, if her

  pen had been at work all night, relating domestic events. "Well!" I said. "What

  is it?"

  "Have you done already?" she asked.

  I showed her the blot. My sister Eunice (the strangest as well as the dearest of

  girls) always blurts out what she has in her mind at the time. She fixed her

  eyes gravely on my spoiled page, and said: "That comforts me." I crossed the

  room, and looked at her book. She had not even summoned energy enough to make a

  blot. "What will papa think of us," she said, "if we don't begin to-night?"

  "Why not begin," I suggested, "by writing down what he said, when he gave us our

  journals? Those wise words of advice will be in their proper place on the first

  page of the new books."

  Not at all a demonstrative girl naturally; not ready with her tears, not liberal

  with her caresses, not fluent in her talk, Eunice was affected by my proposal in

  a manner wonderful to see. She suddenly developed into an excitable person--I

  declare she kissed me. "Oh," she burst out, "how clever you are! The very thing

  to write about; I'll do it directly."

  She really did it directly; without once stopping to consider, without once

  waiting to ask my advice. Line after line, I heard her noisy pen hurrying to the

  bottom of a first page, and getting three-parts of the way toward the end of a

  second page, before she closed her diary. I reminded her that she had not turned

  the key, in the lock which was intended to keep her writing private.

  "It's not worth while," she answered. "Anybody who cares to do it may read what

  I write. Good-night."

  The singular change which I had noticed in her began to disappear, when she set

  about her preparations for bed. I noticed the old easy indolent movements again,

  and that regular and deliberate method of brushing her hair, which I can never

  contemplate without feeling a stupefying influence that has helped me to many a

  delicious night's sleep. She said her prayers in her favorite corner of the

  room, and laid her head on the pillow with the luxurious little sigh which

  announces that she is falling asleep. This reappearance of her usual habits was

  really a relief to me. Eunice in a state of excitement is Eunice exhibiting an

  unnatural spectacle.

  The next thing I did was to take the liberty which she had already sanctioned--I

  mean the liberty of reading what she had written. Here it is, copied exactly:

  "I am not half so fond of anybody as I am of papa. He is always kind, he is

  always right. I love him, I love him, I love him.

  "But this is not how I meant to begin. I must tell how he talked to us; I wish

  he was here to tell it himself.

  "He said to me: 'You are getting lazier than ever, Eunice.' He said to Helena:

  'You are feeling the influence of Eunice's example.' He said to both of us: 'You

  are too ready, my dear children, to sit with your hands on your laps, looking at

  nothing and thinking of nothing; I want to try a new way of employing your

  leisure time.'

  "He opened a parcel on the table. He made each of us a present of a beautiful

  book, called 'Journal.' He said: 'When you have nothing to do, my dears, in the

  evening, employ yourselves in keeping a diary of the events of the day. It will

  be a useful record in many ways, and a good moral discipline for young girls.'

  Helena said: 'Oh, thank you!' I said the same, but not so cheerfully.

  "The truth is, I feel out of spirits now if I think of papa; I am not easy in my

  mind about him. When he is very much interested, there is a quivering in his

  face which I don't remember in past times. He seems to have got older and

  thinner, all on a sudden. He shouts (which he never used to do) when he

  threatens sinners at sermon-time. Being in dreadful earnest about our souls, he

  is of course obliged to speak of the devil; but he never used to hit the

  harmless pulpit cushion with his fist as he does now. Nobody seems to have seen

  these things but me; and now I have noticed them what ought I to do? I don't

  know; I am certain of nothing, except what I have put in at the top of page one:

  I love him, I love him, I love him."

  . . . . . . .

  There this very curious entry ended. It was easy enough to discover the

  influence which had made my slow-minded sister so ready with her. memory and her

  pen--so ready, in short, to do anything and everything, provided her heart was

  in it, and her father was in it.

  But Eunice is wrong, let me tell her, in what she says of myself.

  I, too, have seen the sad change in my father; but I happen to know that he

  dislikes having it spoken of at home, and I have kept my painful discoveries to

  myself. Unhappily, the best medical advice is beyond our reach. The one really

  competent doctor in this place is known to be an infidel. But for that shocking

  obstacle I might have persuaded my father to see him. As for the other two

  doctors whom he has consulted, at different times, one talked about suppressed

  gout, and the other told him to take a year's holiday and enjoy himself on the

  Continent.

  The clock has just struck twelve. I have been writing and copying till my eyes

  are heavy, and I want to follow Eunice's example and sleep as soundly as she

  does. We have m
ade a strange beginning of this journalizing experiment. I wonder

  how long it will go on, and what will come of it.

  SECOND DAY.

  I begin to be afraid that I am as stupid--no; that is not a nice word to

  use--let me say as simple as dear Eunice. A diary means a record of the events

  of the day; and not one of the events of yesterday appears in my sister's

  journal or in mine. Well, it is easy to set that mistake right. Our lives are so

  dull (but I would not say so in my father's hearing for the world) that the

  record of one day will be much the same as the record of another.

  After family prayers and breakfast I suffer my customary persecution at the

  hands of the cook. That is to say, I am obliged, being the housekeeper, to order

  what we have to eat. Oh, how I hate inventing dinners! and how I admire the

  enviable slowness of mind and laziness of body which have saved Eunice from

  undertaking the worries of housekeeping in her turn! She can go and work in her

  garden, while I am racking my invention to discover variety in dishes without

  overstepping the limits of economy. I suppose I may confess it privately to

  myself--how sorry I am not to have been born a man!

  My next employment leads me to my father's study, to write under his dictation.

  I don't complain of this; it flatters my pride to feel that I am helping so

  great a man. At the same time, I do notice that here again Eunice's little

  defects have relieved her of another responsibility. She can neither keep

  dictated words in her memory, nor has she ever been able to learn how to put in

  her stops.

  After the dictation, I have an hour's time left for practicing music. My sister

  comes in from the garden, with her pencil and paint-box, and practices drawing.

  Then we go out for a walk--a delightful walk, if my father goes too. He has

  something always new to tell us, suggested by what we pass on the way. Then,

  dinner-time comes--not always a pleasant part of the day to me. Sometimes I hear

  paternal complaints (always gentle complaints) of my housekeeping; sometimes my

  sister (I won't say the greedy sister) tells me I have not given her enough to

  eat. Poor father! Dear Eunice!

  Dinner having reached its end, we stroll in the garden when the weather is fine.

  When it rains, we make flannel petticoats for poor old women. What a horrid

  thing old age is to look at! To be ugly, to be helpless, to be miserably unfit

  for all the pleasures of life--I hope I shall not live to be an old woman. What

  would my father say if he saw this? For his sake, to say nothing of my own

  feelings, I shall do well if I make it a custom to use the lock of my journal.

  Our next occupation is to join the Scripture class for girls, and to help the

  teacher. This is a good discipline for Eunice's temper, and--oh, I don't deny

  it!--for my temper, too. I may long to box the ears of the whole class, but it

  is my duty to keep a smiling face and to be a model of patience. From the

  Scripture class we sometimes go to my father's lecture. At other times, we may

  amuse ourselves as well as we can till the tea is ready. After tea, we read

  books which instruct us, poetry and novels being forbidden. When we are tired of

  the books we talk. When supper is over, we have prayers again, and we go to bed.

  There is our day. Oh, dear me! there is our day.

  . . . . . . .

  And how has Eunice succeeded in her second attempt at keeping a diary? Here is

  what she has written. It has one merit that nobody can deny--it is soon read:

  "I hope papa will excuse me; I have nothing to write about to-day."

  Over and over again I have tried to point out to my sister the absurdity of

  calling her father by the infantile nickname of papa. I have reminded her that

  she is (in years, at least) no longer a child. "Why don't you call him father,

  as I do?" I asked only the other day.

  She made an absurd reply: "I used to call him papa when I was a little girl."

  "That," I reminded her, "doesn't justify you in calling him papa now."

  And she actually answered: "Yes it does." What a strange state of mind! And what