Cynthia Wakeham's Money

XX.

THE DEVIL'S CAULDRON

Frank, being left alone, sat down with the letter Doris had given him. These are the words he read:

"Dear Mr. Etheridge:

"I must ask you to walk by my house as early as nine o'clock to-morrow morning. If, having read this letter, you still feel ready to meet fate at my side, you will enter and tell me so. But if the horror that has rested upon my life falls with this reading upon yours, then pass by on the other side, and I will understand your verdict and accept it.

"It was at a very early age that I first felt the blight which had fallen upon my life with the scar which disfigures one side of my face. Such expressions as 'Poor dear! what a pity!' – 'She would be very beautiful if it were not for that,' make a deep impression upon a child's mind, especially if that child has a proud and sensitive nature, eager for admiration and shrinking from pity. Emma, who is only a year younger than myself, seemed to me quite an enviable being before I knew what the word envy meant, or why I felt so hot and angry when the neighbors took her up and caressed her, while they only cast looks of compassion at me. I hated her and did not know it; I hated the neighbors, and I hated the places where they met, and the home where I was born. I only loved my mother; perhaps, because she alone never spoke of my misfortune, and when she kissed me did not take pains to choose that side of my face which was without blemish. O my mother! if she had lived! But when I was just fifteen, and was feeling even more keenly than ever what it was to have just missed being the beauty of the town, she died, and I found myself left with only a stern and cruelly abstracted father for guardian, and for companion a sister, who in those days was a girl so merry by nature, and so full of play and sport, that she was a constant source of vexation to me, who hated mirth, and felt aggrieved by a cheerfulness I could not share. These passions of jealousy and pride did not lessen with me as I slowly ripened into womanhood. All our family have been victims of their own indomitable will, and even Emma, gentle as you see her to be now, used to have violent gusts of temper when she was crossed in her plans or pleasures. I never flashed out into bitter speech as she did, or made a noise when I was angry, but I had that slow fire within me which made me perfectly inexorable when I had once made up my mind to any course – no one, not even my father or my sister, having the least influence over me. And so it was that those who knew me began to dread me, even while they were forced to acknowledge that I possessed certain merits of heart and understanding. For the disappointment which had soured my disposition had turned me towards study for relief, and the determination to be brilliant, if I could not be beautiful, came with my maturity, and saved me, perhaps, from being nothing but a burden to my family and friends.

"It was Mr. Lothrop, the Episcopalian minister, who first gave me this turn toward serious pursuits. He was a good man, who had known my mother, and after her death he used to come to the house, and finding me moping in a corner, while Emma made the room gay with her talk, he would draw me out with wonderful stories of women who had become the centre of a great society by the brilliance of their attainments and the sparkle of their wit. Once he called me beautiful, and when he saw the deep flush, which I could not subdue, mantle my cheeks and agitate my whole body, he took me very kindly by the hand, and said:

"'Hermione, you have splendid powers. Perhaps God allowed a little defect to fall upon your beauty, in order to teach you the value of the superior faculties with which you are endowed. You can be a fine, grand woman, if you will.'

"Alas! he did not know that one unconscious tribute to my personal attractions would just then have gone much farther with me than any amount of appreciation for my mental abilities. Yet his words had their effect, and from that moment I began to study – not as my father did, with an absorbed, passionate devotion to one line of thought; that seemed to me narrow and demoralizing, perhaps because almost every disappointment or grief incident to those days could be traced to my father's abstraction to everything disconnected with his laboratory. If I wished to go to the city, or extend my knowledge of the world by travel, it was: 'I have an experiment on hand; I cannot leave the laboratory.' If I wished a new gown, or a set of books, it was: 'I am not rich, and I must use all my spare means in buying the apparatus I need, or the chemicals which are necessary to the discoveries I am in the way of making.' Yet none of those discoveries or experiments ever resulted in anything further than the acquiring on his part of a purely local fame for learning. Therefore no special branch for me, but a general culture which would fit me to shine in any society it might henceforth be my good fortune to enter.

"My father might brood over his books, and bend his back over the retort and crucible; my sister might laugh and attract the liking of a crowd of foolish heads, but I would be the Sevigny, the Rambouillet of my time, and by the eloquence of my conversation and the grace of my manner win for myself that superiority among women which nature had designed for me, but of which cruel fate had robbed me, even before I knew its worth.

"You will say these are great hopes for a village girl who had never travelled beyond her native town, and who knew the great world only through the medium of books. But is it not in villages and quiet sequestered places that lofty ambitions are born? Is it the city boy who becomes the President of our United States, or the city girl who startles the world with her talent as poet, artist, or novelist?

"I read, and learned the world, and felt that I knew my place in it. When my training should be complete, when I had acquired all that my books and the companionship of the best minds in Marston could teach, then I would go abroad, and in the civilization of other lands complete the education which had now become with me a passion, because in it I saw the stepping-stone to the eminence I sought.

"I speak plainly; it is necessary. You must know what was passing in my mind during my girlhood's years, or you will not understand me or the temptations which befell me. Besides, in writing thus I am preparing myself for the revelation of a weakness I have shrunk till now from acknowledging. It must be made. I cannot put it off any longer. I must speak of Dr. Sellick, and explain if possible what he gradually became to me in those lonely and studious years.

"I had known him from a child, but I did not begin to think of him till he began to visit our house. He was a student then, and he naturally took a great interest in chemistry. My father's laboratory was convenient, well-stocked with apparatus, and freely opened to him. To my father's laboratory he accordingly came every day when he was in town, till it began to be quite a matter of course to see him there.

"I was very busy that summer, and for some time looked upon this only as a habit on his part, and so took little heed of his presence. But one day, being weary with the philosophy I had been studying, I took from the shelves a book of poems, and sitting down in the dimmest corner of our stiff old parlor, I began to read some impassioned verses, which, before I knew it, roused my imagination and inflamed my heart to a point which made it easy for any new romantic impression to be made upon me.

"At this instant fate and my ever-cruel destiny brought into my presence Edgar Sellick. He had been like myself hard at work, and had become weary, and anxious perhaps for a change, or, as I am now compelled to think, eager to talk of one whose very existence I was tempted to forget when she was, as then, away from home. He had come into the room where I was, and was standing, flushed and handsome, in the one bright streak of sunlight that flashed at that moment over the floor. I had always liked him, and thought him the only real gentleman in town, but something quite new in my experience made my heart swell as I met his eyes that day, and though I will not call it love (not now), it was something which greatly moved me and made me feel that in the gaze and seeming interest of this man I saw the true road to happiness and to the only life which would ever really satisfy me. For, let it be my excuse, under all my vanity, a vanity greater for the seeming check it had received, dwelt an ardent and irrepressible desire for affection, such affection as I had never received since my dying mother laid her trembling hand upon my head and bade me trust the good God for a happiness I had never possessed. My disfigurement owed its deepest sting to the fact, never revealed to others before, and scarcely acknowledged to myself then, that it stood in the way, as I thought, to my ever being passionately beloved. When, therefore, I saw the smile on Dr. Sellick's face, and realized that he was looking for me, I rose up with new hopes in my heart and a new brightness in my life.

"But we said nothing, he or I, beyond the merest commonplaces, and had my powers of observation been as keen then as they are now, since a new light has been shed upon those days, I would have perceived that his eye did not brighten when it rested upon me, save when some chance mention was made of Emma, and of the pleasures she was enjoying abroad. But no doubts came to me at that time. Because my heart was warm I took it for granted that his was so also, and not dreaming of any other reason for his attentions than the natural one of his desiring my society for its own sake, I gradually gave myself up to a feeling of which it is shame now for me to speak, but which, as it was the origin of all my troubles, I must compel myself to acknowledge here in all its force and fervor.

"The fact that he never uttered a word of love or showed me any attention beyond that of being constantly at my side, did not serve to alarm or even dispirit me. I knew him to have just started upon his career as physician, and also knew him to be proud, and was quite content to cherish my hopes and look towards a future that had unaccountably brightened into something very brilliant indeed.

"It was while matters were in this condition that Emma came home from her trip. I remember the occasion well, and how pretty she looked in her foreign gowns. You, who have only seen her under a shadow, cannot imagine how pleasing she was, fresh from her happy experiences abroad, and an ocean trip, which had emphasized the roses on her cheek and the brightness in her eyes. But though I saw it all and felt that I could never compete with the gaiety which was her charm, I did not feel that old sickly jealousy of her winsome ways which once distorted her figure in my eyes, nor did I any longer hate her laugh or shrink from her merry banter. For I had my own happiness, as I thought, and could afford to be lenient towards a gay young thing who had no secret hope like mine to fill her heart and make it too rich with joy for idle mirth.

"It was a gay season for humble little Marston, and various picnics followed by a ball in Hartford promised festivities enough to keep us well alive. I did not care for festivities, but I did care for Dr. Sellick, and picnics and balls offered opportunities beyond those given by his rather commonplace visits to the house. I therefore looked forward to the picnics at the seashore with something like expectancy, and as proof of my utter blindness to the real state of affairs, it never even entered into my head that it would be the scene of his first meeting with Emma after an absence of many months.

"Nor did any behavior on his part at this picnic enlighten me as to his true feelings, or the direction in which they ran. He greeted Emma in my presence, and the unusual awkwardness with which he took her hand told me nothing, though it may have whispered something to her. I only noticed that he had the most refined features and the most intellectual head of any one present, and was very happy thereat, and disposed to accord him an interview if he showed any inclination to draw me away from the rest of the merry-makers. But he did not, though he strolled several times away by himself; and once I saw him chatting with Emma; but this fact made no impression upon me and my Fool's Paradise remained still intact.

"But that night on reaching home I felt that something was going wrong. Aunt Lovell was then with us, and I saw her cast a glance of dismay upon me as I entered the room where she and Emma had been closeted together. Emma, too, looked out of sorts, and hardly spoke to me when I passed her in the hall. Indeed, that quick temper of which I have already spoken was visible in her eyes, and if I had opened my own lips I am sure she would have flashed out with some of her bitter speeches. But I was ignorant of having given her any cause for anger; so, thinking she was jealous of the acquirements which I had made in her absence, and the advantages they now gave me in any gathering where cultured people came together, I hurried by her in some disdain, and in the quiet of my own room regained the equanimity my aunt's look and Emma's manifest ill-feeling towards me had for a moment shaken.

"It was the last time I was to encounter anger in that eye. When I met her next morning I discovered that some great change had passed over her. The high spirits I had always secretly deprecated were gone, and in their place behold an indescribable gentleness of manner which has never since forsaken her.

"But this was not all; her attitude towards me was different. From indifference it had budded into love; and if one can become devoted in a night, then was it devotion that she showed in every look and every word she bestowed upon me from that day. The occasion for this change I did not then know; when I did, a change passed over me also.

"Meantime a grave event took place. I was out walking, and my path took me by the church. I mean the one that stands by itself on the top of the hill. Perhaps you have been there, perhaps you have not. It is a lonesome-looking structure, but it has pleasant surroundings, while the view of the sea which you get from its rear is superb. I often used to go there, just for the breath of salt-water that seemed to hover about the place, and as there was a big flat stone in the very spot most favorable for observation, I was accustomed to sit there for hours with my book or pencil for company.

"Had Edgar Sellick loved me he would have been acquainted with my habits. This is apparent to me now, but then I seemed to see nothing beyond my own wishes and hopes. But this does not explain what happened to me there. I was sitting on the stone of which I have spoken, and was looking at the long line of silver light on the horizon which we call the sea, when I suddenly heard voices. Two men were standing on the other side of the church, engaged, in all probability, in gazing at the landscape, but talking on a subject very remote from what they saw before them. I heard their words distinctly. They were these:

"'I tell you she is beautiful.'

"I did not recognize the voice making use of this phrase, but the one that answered was well known to me, and its tones went through me like a knife.

"'Oh, yes, if you only see one side of her face.'

"They were speaking of me, and the last voice, careless, indifferent, almost disdainful as it was, was that of Edgar Sellick.

"I quailed as at a mortal blow, but I did not utter a sound. I do not know as I even moved; but that only shows the control a woman unconsciously holds over herself. For nothing short of a frenzied scream could have voiced the agony I felt, or expressed the sudden revolt which took place within me, sickening me at once with life, past, present, and future. Not till they had strolled away did I rise and dash down the hill into the wood that lies at its foot, but when I felt myself alone and well shielded from the view of any chance observer, I groaned again and again, and wrung my hands in a misery to which I can do but little justice now. I had been thrust so suddenly out of paradise. I had been so sure of his regard, his love. The scar which disfigured me in other eyes had been, as I thought, no detriment in his. He loved me, and saw nothing in me but what was consistent with that love. And now I heard him with my own ears speak contemptuously of that scar. All that I had hoped, all that I had confided in, was gone from me in an instant, and I felt myself toppling into a misery I could neither contemplate nor fathom. For an hour I walked the paths of that small wood, communing with myself; then I took my resolve. Life, which had brought me nothing but pain and humiliation, was not worth living. The hopes I had indulged, the love in which I had believed, had proved a mockery, and the shame which their destruction brought was worse than death, and so to be more shunned than death. I was determined to die.

"The means were ready to my hand. Further on in that very wood I knew of a pool. It was a deep, dark, deadly place, as its name of Devil's Cauldron betokens, and in it I felt I could most fitly end the life that was dear to no one. I began to stray towards that place. As I went I thought of home, but with no feelings of longing or compunction. Emma might be kind, had been kind for the last day or so, but Emma did not love me, would not sacrifice anything for me, would not grieve, save in the decent way her sisterhood would naturally require. As for my father, he would feel the interruption it would cause in his experiments, but that would not last long, and in a few days he would be again in his beloved laboratory. No one, not a single being, unless it was dear Aunt Lovell, would sincerely mourn me or sigh over the death of the poor girl with a scar. Edgar Sellick might raise his eyebrows in some surprise, and Edgar Sellick should know what a careless word could do. I had a pencil and paper in my pocket, and I meant to use them. He should not go through life happy and careless, when a line from me would show him that the death of one who had some claims upon his goodness, lay at his door.

"The sight of the dim, dark pool did not frighten me from these intentions. I was in that half-maddened state of disgust and shame which makes the promise of any relief look inviting and peaceful. I loved the depth of that cool, clear water. I saw in it rest, peace, oblivion. Had I not had that letter to write I would have tasted that rest and peace, and these words would never have come to your eyes. But the few minutes I took to write some bitter and incoherent lines to Dr. Sellick saved me from the doom I contemplated. Have I reason to be thankful it was so? To-morrow morning will tell me.

"The passion which guided my pencil was still in my face when I laid the paper down on the bank and placed a stone above it. The eyes which saw those evidences of passion were doubtless terrified by them, for as I passed to the brink of the pool and leaned over it I felt a frenzied grasp on my arm, and turning, I met the look of Emma fixed upon me in mortal terror and apprehension.

"'What are you going to do?' she cried. 'Why are you leaning over the Devil's Cauldron like that?'

"I had not wished to see her or to say good-by to any one. But now, that by some unaccountable chance she had come upon me, in my desperation I would give her one kiss before I went to my doom.

"'Emma,' I exclaimed, meeting her look without any sharp sense of shame, 'life is not as promising for me as it is for you; life is not promising for me at all, so I seek to end it.'

"The horror in her eyes deepened. The grasp on my arm became like that of a man.

"'You are mad,' she cried. 'You do not know what you are doing. What has happened to drive you to a deed like this? I – I thought – ' and here she stammered and lost for the moment her self-control – 'that you seemed very happy last night.'

"'I was,' I cried. 'I did not know then what a blighted creature I was. I thought some one might be brought to love me, even with this frightful, hideous scar on my face. But I know now that I am mistaken; that no man will ever overlook this; that I must live a lonely life, a suffering life; and I have not the strength or the courage to do so. I – I might have been beautiful,' I cried, 'but – '

"Her face, suddenly distorted by the keenest pain, drew my attention, even at that moment of immeasurable woe, and made me stop and say in less harsh and embittered tones:

"'No one will miss me very much, so do not seek to stop me.'

"Her head fell forward, her eyes sought the ground, but she did not loosen her hold on my arm. Instead of that, it tightened till it felt like a band of steel.

"'You have left a letter there,' she murmured, allowing her eyes to wander fearfully towards it. 'Was it to me? to our father?'

"'No,' I returned.

"She shuddered, but her eyes did not leave the spot. Suddenly her lips gave a low cry; she had seen the word Sellick.

"'Yes,' I answered in response to what I knew were her thoughts. 'It is that traitor who is killing me. He has visited me day by day, he has followed me from place to place; he has sought me, smiled upon me, given me every token of love save that expressed in words; and now, now I hear him, when he does not know I am near, speak disrespectfully of my looks, of this scar, as no man who loves, or ever will love, could speak of any defect in the woman he has courted.'

"'You did not hear aright,' came passionately from her lips. 'You are mistaken. Dr. Sellick could not so far forget himself.'

"'Dr. Sellick can and did. Dr. Sellick has given me a blow for which his fine art of healing can find no remedy. Kiss me, Emma, kiss me, dear girl, and do not hold me so tight; see, we might tumble into the water together.'

"'And if we did,' she gasped, 'it would be better than letting you go alone. No, no, Hermione, you shall never plunge into that pool while I live to hold you back. Listen to me, listen. Am I nothing to you? Will you not live for me? I have been careless, I know, happy in my own hopes and pleasures, and thinking too little, oh, much too little, of the possible griefs or disappointments of my only sister. But this shall be changed; I promise you shall all be changed. I will live for you henceforth; we will breathe, work, suffer, enjoy together. No sister shall be tenderer, no lover more devoted than I will be to you. If you do not marry, then will not I. No pleasure that is denied you shall be accepted by me. Only come away from this dark pool; quit casting those glances of secret longing into that gruesome water. It is too awful, too loathsome a place to swallow so much beauty; for you are beautiful, no matter what any one says; so beautiful that it is almost a mercy you have some defect, or we should not dare to claim you for our own, you are so far above what any of us could hope for or expect.'