CHAPTER V.
I BECOME A WOMAN
Aunt Emma burst into the room, all horror and astonishment. Shelooked at the Inspector for a few seconds in breathless indignation;then she broke out in a tone of fiery remonstrance which fairlysurprised me:
"What do you mean by this intrusion, sir? How dare you force yourway into my house in my absence? How dare you encourage my servantsto disobey my orders? How dare you imperil this young lady's healthby coming here to talk with her?"
She turned round to me anxiously. I suppose I was very flushed withexcitement and surprise.
"My darling child," she cried, growing pale all at once, "Mariashould never have allowed him to come inside the door! You shouldhave stopped upstairs! You should have refused to see him! I shallhave you ill again on my hands, as before, after this. He'll haveundone all the good the last four years have done for you!"
But I was another woman now. I felt it in a moment.
"Auntie dearest," I answered, moving across to her, and laying myhand on her shoulder to soothe her poor ruffled nerves, "don't bethe least alarmed. It's I who'm to blame, and not Maria. I told herto let this gentleman in. He's done me good, not harm. I'm so gladto have been allowed at last to speak freely about it!"
Aunt Emma shook all over, visibly to the naked eye.
"You'll have a relapse, my child!" she exclaimed, half crying, andclinging to me in her terror. "You'll forget all you've learned:you'll go back these four years again!--Leave my house at once, sir!You should never have entered it!"
I stood between them like a statue.
"No, stop here a little longer," I said, waving my hand towards himimperiously. "I haven't yet heard all it's right for me to hear....Auntie, you mistake. I'm a woman at last. I see what everythingmeans. I'm beginning to remember again. For four years that hatefulPicture has haunted me night and day. I could never shut my eyes fora minute without seeing it. I've longed to know what it all meant;but whenever I've asked, I've been repressed like a baby. I'm a babyno longer: I feel myself a woman. What the Inspector here has toldme already, half opens my eyes: I must have them opened altogethernow. I can't stop at this point. I'm going back to Woodbury."
Aunt Emma clung to me still harder in a perfect agony of passionateterror.
"To Woodbury, my darling!" she cried. "Going back! Oh, Una, it'llkill you!"
"I think not," the Inspector answered, with a very quiet smile."Miss Callingham has recovered, I venture to say, far moreprofoundly than you imagine. This repression, our medical advisertells us, has been bad for her. If she's allowed to visit freely theplaces connected with her earlier life, it may all return again toher; and the ends of Justice may thus at last be served for us. Inotice already one hopeful symptom: Miss Callingham speaks of goingback to Woodbury."
Aunt Emma looked up at him, horrified. All her firmness was gonenow.
"It's YOU who've put this into her head!" she exclaimed, in aferment of horror. "She'd never thought of it herself. You've madeher do it!"
"On the contrary, auntie," I answered, feeling my ground grow surerunder me every moment as I spoke, "this gentleman has never even bythe merest hint suggested such an idea to my mind. It occurred to mequite spontaneously. I MUST find out now who was my father'smurderer! All the Inspector has told me seems to arouse in my brainsome vague, forgotten chords. It brings back to me faint shadows. Ifeel sure if I went to Woodbury I should remember much more. Andthen, you must see for yourself, there's another reason, dear, thatought to make me go. Nobody but I ever saw the murderer's face. It'sa duty imposed upon me from without, as it were, never to rest againin peace till I've recognised him."
Aunt Emma collapsed into an easy-chair. Her face was deadly pale.Her ringers trembled.
"If you go, Una," she cried, playing nervously with her gloves, "Imust go with you too! I must take care of you: I must watch overyou!"
I took her quivering hand in mine and stroked it gently. It was asoft and delicate white little hand, all marked inside with curiousragged scars that I'd known and observed ever since I first knewher. I held it in silence for a minute. Somehow I felt our positionswere reversed to-day. This interview had suddenly brought out what Iknow now to be my own natural and inherent character--self-reliant,active, abounding in initiative. For four years I had been as achild in her hands, through mere force of circumstances. My trueself came out now and asserted its supremacy.
"No, dear," I said, soothing her cheek; "I shall go alone. I shalltry what I can discover and remember myself without any suggestionor explanation from others. I want to find out how things reallystand. I shall set to work on my own account to unravel thismystery."
"But how can you manage things by yourself?" Aunt Emma exclaimed,wringing her hands despondently. "A girl of your age! without even amaid! and all alone in the world! I shall be afraid to let you go.Dr. Wade won't allow it."
I drew myself up very straight, and realised the position.
"Aunt Emma," I said plainly, in a decided voice, "I'm a full-grownwoman, over twenty-one years of age, mistress of my own acts, and nolonger a ward of yours. I can do as I like, and neither Dr. Wade noranybody else can prevent me. He may ADVICE me not to go: he has nopower to ORDER me. I'm my father's heiress, and a person ofindependent means. I've been a cipher too long. From to-day I takemy affairs wholly into my own hands. I 'll go round at once and seeyour lawyer, your banker, your agent, your tradesmen, and tell themthat henceforth I draw my own rents, I receive my own dividends, Ipay my own bills, I keep my own banking account. And to-morrow orthe next day I set out for Woodbury."
The Inspector turned to Aunt Emma with a demonstrative smile.
"There, you see for yourself," he said, well pleased, "what thisinterview has done for her!"
But Aunt Emma only drew back, wrung her hands again in impotentdespair, and stared at him blankly like a wounded creature.
The Inspector took up his hat to leave. I followed him out to thedoor, and shook hands with him cordially. The burden felt lighter onmy shoulders already. For four long years that mystery had hauntedme day and night, as a thing impenetrable, incomprehensible, noteven to be inquired about. The mere sense that I might now begin toask what it meant seemed to make it immediately less awful and lessburdensome to me.
When I returned to the drawing-room, Aunt Emma sat there on thesofa, crying silently, the very picture of misery.
"Una," she said, without even raising her eyes to mine, "the man mayhave done as he says: he may have restored you your mind again; butwhat's that to me? He's lost me my child, my darling, my daughter!"
I stooped down and kissed her. Dear, tender-hearted auntie! she hadalways been very good to me. But I knew I was right, for all that,in becoming a woman,--in asserting my years, my independence, myfreedom, my duty. To have shirked it any longer would have beensheer cowardice. So I just kissed her silently, and went up to myown room--to put on my brown hat, and go out to the banker's.
From that moment forth, one fierce desire in life alone possessedme. The brooding mystery that enveloped my life ceased to bepassive, and became an active goad, as it were, to push me forwardincessantly on my search for the runaway I was the creature of afixed idea. A fiery energy spurred me on all my time. I wasdetermined now to find out my father's murderer. I was determined toshake off the atmosphere of doubt and forgetfulness. I wasdetermined to recall those first scenes of my life that so eluded mymemory.
Yet, strange to say, it was rather a burning curiosity and a deepsense of duty that urged me on, than anything I could properly callaffection--still less, revenge or malice. I didn't remember myfather as alive at all: the one thing I could recollect about himwas the ghastly look of that dead body, stretched at full length onthe library floor, with its white beard all dabbled in the red bloodthat clotted it. It was abstract zeal for the discovery of the truththat alone pushed me on. This search became to me henceforth an endand aim in itself. It stood out, as it were, visibly in theimperative mood: "go here;" "go there;" "do this;"
"try that;""leave no stone unturned anywhere till you've tracked down themurderer!" Those were the voices that now incessantly thoughinaudibly pursued me.
Next day I spent in preparations for my departure. I would hunt upWoodbury now, though fifty Aunt Emma's held their gentle old facesup in solemn warning against me. The day after that again, I set outon my task. The pull was hard. I had taken my own affairs entirelyinto my own hands by that time, and had provided myself with moneyfor a long stay at Woodbury. But it was the very first railwayjourney I could ever remember to have made alone; and I confess,when I found myself seated all by myself in a first-class carriage,with no friend beside me, my resolution for a moment almost brokedown again. It was so terrible to feel oneself boxed up there for anhour or two alone, with that awful Picture staring one in the faceall the time from every fence and field and wall and hoarding. Itobliterated Fry's Cocoa; it fixed itself on the yellow face ofColman's Mustard.
I went by Liverpool Street, and drove across to Paddington. I hadnever, to my knowledge, been in London before: and it was all so newto me. But Liverpool Street was even newer to me than Paddington, Inoticed. A faint sense of familiarity seemed to hang about the GreatWestern line. And that was not surprising, I thought, as I turned itover; for, of course, in the old days, when we lived at Woodbury, Imust often have come down from town that way with my father. Yet Iremembered nothing of it all definitely; the most I could say wasthat I seemed dimly to recollect having been there before--thoughwhen or where or how, I hadn't the faintest notion.
I was early at Paddington. The refreshment room somehow failed toattract me. I walked up and down the platform, waiting for my train.As I did so, a boy pasted a poster on a board: it was thecontents-sheet of one of the baser little Society papers. Somethingstrange in it caught my eye. I looked again in amazement. Oh, greatheavens! what was this in big flaring letters?
"MISS UNA CALLINGHAM AND THE WOODBURY MYSTERY! Is SHE SCREENING THEMURDERER? A POSSIBLE EXPLANATION!"
The words took my breath away. They were too horrible to realise. Ipositively couldn't speak. I went up to the bookstall, laid down mypenny without moving my lips, and took the paper in my hand intremulous silence.
I dared not open it there and then, I confess. I waited till I wasin the train, and on my way to Woodbury.
When I did so, it was worse, even worse than my fears. The articlewas short, but it was very hateful. It said nothing straightout--the writer had evidently the fear of the law of libel beforehis eyes as he wrote,--but it hinted and insinuated in a detestableundertone the most vile innuendoes. A Treasury Doctor and a PoliceInspector, it said, had lately examined Miss Callingham again, andfound her intellect in every respect perfectly normal, except thatshe couldn't remember the face of her father's murderer. Now, thiswas odd, because, you see, Miss Callingham was in the room at themoment the shot was fired; and, alone in the world, Miss Callinghamhad seen the face of the man who fired it. Who was that man? and whywas he there, unknown to the servants, in a room with nobody but Mr.Callingham and his daughter? A correspondent (who preferred to guardhis incognito) had suggested in this matter some very searchingquestions: Could the young man--for it was allowed he wasyoung--have been there with Miss Callingham when Mr. Callinghamentered? Could he have been on terms of close intimacy with theheroine of The Grange Mystery, who was a young lady--as all theworld knew from her photographs--of great personal attractiveness,and who was also the heiress to a considerable property? Could hehave been there, then, by appointment, without the father'sknowledge? Was this the common case of a clandestine assignation?Could the father have returned to the house unexpectedly, at aninopportune moment, and found his daughter there, closeted with astranger--perhaps with a man who had already, for sufficientgrounds, been forbidden the premises? Such things might be, in thisworld that we live in: he would be a bold man who would deny themcategorically. Could an altercation have arisen on the father'sreturn, and the fatal shot have been fired in the ensuing scuffle?And could the young lady then have feigned this curious relapse intothat Second State we had all heard so much about, for no otherreason than to avoid giving evidence at a trial for murder againsther guilty lover?
These were suggestions that deserved the closest consideration ofthe Authorities charged with the repression of crime. Was it nothigh time that the inquest on Mr. Callingham's body should beformally reopened, and that the young lady, now restored (as wegathered) to her own seven senses, should be closely interrogated bytrained legal cross-examiners?
I laid down the paper with a burning face. I learned now, for thefirst time, how closely my case had been watched, how eagerly myevery act and word had been canvassed. It was hateful to think of myphotograph having been exposed in every London shop-window, and ofanonymous slanderers being permitted to indite such scandal as thisabout an innocent woman. But, at any rate, it had the effect ofsealing my fate. If I meant even before to probe this mystery to thebottom, I felt now no other course was possibly open to me. For thesake of my own credit, for the sake of my own good fame, I must findout and punish my father's murderer.