CHAPTER XXIII.
I have been reading over the record I have written of my life, whichhas been made with care and a strict adherence to the truth. I am atthe present hour sitting alone in the house I have taken andfurnished, and to which I hope shortly to bring my beloved Lauretta asmy wife. The writing of this record from time to time has grown into akind of habit with me, and there are occasions in which I have beengreatly interested in it myself. Never until this night have I readthe record from beginning to end, and I have come to a resolution todiscontinue it. My reason is a sufficient one, and as it concerns noman else, no man can dispute my right to make it.
My resolution is, after to-morrow, to allow my new life, soon tocommence, to flow on uninterruptedly without burdening myself with thelabour of putting into writing the happy experiences awaiting me. Ishall be no longer alone; Lauretta will be by my side; I shouldbegrudge the hours which deprived me of her society.
Another thing. I must have no secrets from her; and much that here isrecorded should properly be read by no eye than mine. Lauretta'snature is so gentle, her soul so pure, that it would distress her toread these pages. This shall not be. I recognise a certain morbid veinin myself which the continuing of this record might magnify into adisease. It presents itself to me in the light of guarding myselfagainst myself, by adopting wise measures to foster cheerfulness. Thatmy nature is more melancholy than cheerful is doubtless to be ascribedto the circumstances of my child-life, which was entirely devoid oflight and gaiety. This must not be in the future; I have a battle tofight, and I shall conquer because Lauretta's happiness is on theissue.
It will, however, be as well to make the record complete in a certainsense, and I shall therefore take note of certain things which haveoccurred since my conversation with Pierre in his cell. That done, Ishall put these papers aside in a secret place, and shall endeavour toforget them. My first thought was to destroy the record, but I wasinfluenced in the contrary direction by the fact that my first meetingwith Lauretta and the growth of my love for her are described in it.First impressions jotted down at the time of their occurrence have afreshness about them which can never be imparted by the aid of memory,and it may afford me pleasure in the future to live over again,through these pages, the sweet days of my early intimacy with mybeloved girl. Then there is the strange story of Kristel and Silvain,which undoubtedly is worth preserving.
First, to get rid of the miserable affair of the attempt to rob DoctorLouis's house. Pierre was tried and convicted, and has paid thepenalty of his crime. His belief in the possession of a soul couldnot, after all, have had in it the spirit of sincerity; it must havebeen vaunted merely in pursuance of his cunning endeavours to escapehis just punishment; otherwise he would have confessed before he died.Father Daniel, the good priest, did all he could to bring the man torepentance, but to the last he insisted that he was innocent. It wasstrange to me to hear Father Daniel express himself sympatheticallytowards the criminal.
"He laboured, up to the supreme moment," said the good priest, in acompassionate tone, "under the singular hallucination that he wasgoing before his Maker guiltless of the shedding of blood. So ferventand apparently sincere were his protestations that I could not helpbeing shaken in my belief that he was guilty."
"Then you believe in demons?" I remarked, amazed at this weakness.
"Not in the sense," said Father Daniel, "that the unhappy man wouldhave had me believe. Reason rejects his story as something altogethertoo incredulous; and yet I pity him."
I did not prolong the discussion with the good priest; it would havebeen useless, and, to Father Daniel, painful. We looked at the matterfrom widely different standpoints. Intolerance warps the judgment; noless does such a life as Father Daniel has lived, for ever seeking tofind excuses for error and crime, for ever seeking to palliate a man'smisdeeds. Sweetness of disposition, carried to extremes, maydegenerate into positive mental feebleness; to my mind this is thecase with Father Daniel. He is not the kind who, in serious matters,can be depended upon for a just estimate of human affairs.
Eric and Emilius, after a longer delay than Doctor Louis anticipated,have taken up their residence in Nerac. They paid two short visits tothe village, and I was in hopes each time upon their departure thatthey had relinquished their intention of living in Nerac. I did notgive expression to my wish, for I knew it was not shared by any memberof Doctor Louis's family.
It is useless to disguise that I dislike them, and that there existsbetween us a certain antipathy. To be just, this appears to be more onmy side than on theirs, and it is not in my disfavour that thefeelings I entertain are nearer the surface. Doctor Louis and theladies entertain a high opinion of them; I do not; and I have alreadysome reason for looking upon them with a suspicious eye. This reason Iwill presently explain.
When we were first introduced it was natural that I should regard themwith interest, an interest which sprang from the story of theirfather's fateful life. They bear a wonderful resemblance to each otherthey are both fair, with tawny beards, which it appears to me theytake a pride in shaping and trimming alike; their eyes are blue, andthey are of exactly the same height. Undoubtedly handsome men, havingin that respect the advantage of me, who, in point of attractivelooks, cannot compare with them. They seem to be devotedly attached toeach other, but this may or may not be. So were Silvain and Kristeluntil a woman stepped between them and changed their love to hate.Before I came into personal relationship with Eric and Emilius I madeup my mind to distrust appearances and to seek for evidence upon whichto form an independent judgment. Some such evidence has already cometo me, and I shall secretly follow it up.
They are on terms of the most affectionate intimacy with Doctor Louisand his family, and both Lauretta and Lauretta's mother take pleasurein their society; Doctor Louis, also, in a lesser degree. Women arealways more effusive than men.
They are not aware of the relations which bind me to the village. Thatthey may have some suspicion of my feelings for Lauretta is more thanprobable, for I have seen them look from her to me and then at eachother, and I have interpreted these looks. It is as if they said, "Whyis this stranger here? He is usurping our place." I have begged DoctorLouis to allow me to speak openly to Lauretta, and he has consented toshorten the period of silence to which I was pledged. I have hispermission to declare my love to his daughter to-morrow. There are nodoubts in my mind that she will accept me; but there _are_ doubts thatif I left it too late there would be danger that her love for me wouldbe weakened. Yes, although it is torture to me to admit it I cannotrid myself of this impression. How would this be effected and by whom?By these brothers, Eric and Emilius, and by means of misrepresentationsto my injury. I have no positive data to go upon, but I am convincedthat they have an aversion towards me, and that they are in their heartsjealous of me. The doctor is blind to their true character; he believesthem to be generous and noble-minded, men of rectitude and highprinciple. They are not so. I have the evidence of my senses in proofof it.
So much have I been disturbed and unhinged by my feelings towardsthese brothers--feelings which I have but imperfectly expressed--thatlatterly I have frequently been unable to sleep. Impossible to lieabed and toss about for hours in an agony of unrest; therefore I chosethe lesser evil, and resumed the nocturnal wanderings which was myhabit in Rosemullion before the death of my parents. These nightlyrambles have been taken in secret, as in the days of my boyhood, and Imused and spoke aloud as was my custom during that period of my life.But I had new objects to occupy me now--the home in which I hoped toenjoy a heaven of happiness, with Lauretta its guiding star, and allthe bright anticipations of the future. I strove to confine myself tothese dreams, which filled my soul with joy, but there came to mealways the figures of Eric and Emilius, dark shadows to threaten mypromised happiness.
Last week it was, on a night in which I felt that sleep would not bemine if I sought my couch; therefore, earlier than usual--it wasbarely eleven o'clock--I left the house, and
went into the woods.Martin Hartog and his fair daughter were in the habit of retiringearly and rising with the sun, and I stole quietly away unobserved. Attwelve o'clock I turned homewards, and when I was about a hundredyards from my house I was surprised to hear a low murmur of voiceswithin a short distance of me. Since the night on which I visited theThree Black Crows and saw the two strangers there who had come toNerac with evil intent, I had become very watchful, and now thesevoices speaking at such an untimely hour thoroughly aroused me. Istepped quietly in their direction, so quietly that I knew I could notbe heard, and presently I saw standing at a distance of ten or twelveyards the figures of a man and a woman. The man was Emilius, the womanMartin Hartog's daughter.
Although I had heard their voices before I reached the spot upon whichI stood when I recognised their forms, I could not even now determinewhat they said, they spoke in such low tones. So I stood still andwatched them and kept myself from their sight. I may say honestly thatI should not have been guilty of the meanness had it not been that Ientertain an unconquerable aversion against Eric and Emilius. I wassorry to see Martin Hartog's daughter holding a secret interview witha man at midnight, for the girl had inspired me with a respect ofwhich I now knew she was unworthy; but I cannot aver that I was sorryto see Emilius in such a position, for it was an index to hischaracter and a justification of the unfavourable opinion I had formedof him and Eric. Alike as they were in physical presentment, I had nodoubt that their moral natures bore the same kind of resemblance.Libertines both of them, ready for any low intrigue, and holding inlight regard a woman's good name and fame. Truly the picture before meshowed clearly the stuff of which these brothers are made. If theyhold one woman's good name so lightly, they hold all women so. Fitassociates, indeed, for a family so pure and stainless as DoctorLouis's!
This was no chance meeting--how was that possible at such an hour? Itwas premeditated. Theirs was no new acquaintanceship; it must havelasted already some time. The very secrecy of the interview was initself a condemnation.
Should I make Doctor Louis acquainted with the true character of thebrothers who held so high a place in his esteem? This was the questionthat occurred to me as I gazed upon Emilius and Martin Hartog'sdaughter, and I soon answered it in the negative. Doctor Louis was aman of settled convictions, hard to convince, hard to turn. His firstimpulse, upon which he would act, would be to go straight to Emilius,and enlighten him upon the discovery I had made. And then? Why, then,Emilius would invent some tale which it would not be hard to believe,and make light of a matter I deemed so serious. I should be placed inthe position of an eavesdropper, as a man setting sly watches uponothers to whom, from causeless grounds, I had taken a dislike. Ishould be at a disadvantage. Whatever the result one thing wascertain--that I was a person capable not only of unreasonableantipathies but of small meannesses to which a gentleman would notdescend. The love which Doctor Louis bore to Silvain, and which he hadtransferred to Silvain's children, was not to be easily turned; and atthe best I should be introducing doubts into his mind which wouldreflect upon myself because of the part of spy I had played. No; Idecided for the present at least, to keep the knowledge to myself.
As to Martin Hartog, though I could not help feeling pity for him, itwas for him, not me, to look after his daughter. From a general pointof view these affairs were common enough.
I seemed to see now in a clearer light the kind of man Silvainwas--one who would set himself deliberately to deceive where most hewas trusted. Honour, fair dealing, brotherly love, were as nought inhis eyes where a woman was concerned, and he had transmitted thesequalities to Eric and Emilius. My sympathy for Kristel was deepened bywhat I was gazing on; more than ever was I convinced of the justice ofthe revenge he took upon the brother who had betrayed him.
These were the thoughts which passed through my mind while Emilius andMartin Hartog's daughter stood conversing. Presently they strolledtowards me, and I shrank back in fear of being discovered. Thisinvoluntary action on my part, being an accentuation of the meannessof which I was guilty, confirmed me in the resolution at which I hadarrived to say nothing of my discovery to Doctor Louis.
They passed me in silence, walking in the direction of my house. I didnot follow them, and did not return home for another hour.