East Lynne Part 54

"Not find her?" echoed Miss Corny. "Why, what's the time? Is she not in bed?"

"It is three o'clock. She had not been to bed. I cannot find her in the sitting-rooms; neither is she in the children's room."

"Then I'll tell you what it is, Archibald; she's gone worrying after Joyce. Perhaps the girl may be in pain to-night."

Mr. Carlyle was in full retreat toward Joyce's room, at this suggestion, when his sister called to him.

"If anything is amiss with Joyce, you come and tell me, Archibald, for I shall get up and see after her. The girl was my servant before she was your wife's."

He reached Joyce's room, and softly unlatched the door, fully expecting to find a light there, and his wife sitting by the bedside. There was no light there, however, save that which came from the taper he held, and he saw no signs of his wife. Where was she? Was it probable that Joyce should tell him? He stepped inside the room and called to her.

Joyce started up in a fright, which changed to astonishment when she recognized her master. He inquired whether Lady Isabel had been there, and for a few moments Joyce did not answer. She had been dreaming of Lady Isabel, and could not at first detach the dream from the visit which had probably given rise to it.

"What did you say, sir? Is my lady worse?"

"I asked if she had been here. I cannot find her."

"Why, yes," said Joyce, now fully aroused. "She came here and woke me.

That was just before twelve, for I heard the clock strike. She did not stay here a minute, sir."

"Woke you!" repeated Mr. Carlyle. "What did she want? What did she come here for?"

Thoughts are quick; imagination is still quicker; and Joyce was giving the reins to both. Her mistress's gloomy and ambiguous words were crowding on her brain. Three o'clock and she had not been in bed, and was not to be found in the house? A nameless horror struggled to Joyce's face, her eyes were dilating with it; she seized and threw on a large flannel gown which lay on a chair by the bed, and forgetful of her master who stood there, out she sprang to the floor. All minor considerations faded to insignificance beside the terrible dread which had taken possession of her. Clasping the flannel gown tight around her with one hand, she laid the other on the arm of Mr. Carlyle.

"Oh, master! Oh, master! She has destroyed herself! I see it all now."

"Joyce!" sternly interrupted Mr. Carlyle.

"She has destroyed herself, as true as that we two are living here,"

persisted Joyce, her own face livid with emotion. "I can understand her words now; I could not before. She came here--and her face was like a corpse as the light fell upon it--saying she had come to get a promise from me to stay with her children when she was gone, I asked whether she was ill, and she answered, 'Yes, ill and wretched.' Oh, sir, may heaven support you under this dreadful trial!"

Mr. Carlyle felt bewildered--perplexed. Not a syllable did he believe.

He was not angry with Joyce, for he thought she had lost her reason.

"It is so, sir, incredible as you may deem my words," pursued Joyce, wringing her hands. "My lady has been miserably unhappy; and that has driven her to it."

"Joyce, are you in your senses or out of them?" demanded Mr. Carlyle, a certain sternness in his tone. "Your lady miserably unhappy! What do you mean?"

Before Joyce could answer, an addition was received to the company in the person of Miss Carlyle, who appeared in black stockings and a shawl, and the lofty nightcap. Hearing voices in Joyce's room, which was above her own, and full of curiosity, she ascended, not choosing to be shut out from the conference.

"Whatever's up?" cried she. "Is Lady Isabel found?"

"She is not found, and she never will be found but in her winding- sheet," returned Joyce, whose lamentable and unusual state of excitement completely overpowered her customary quiet respect and plain good sense.

"And, ma'am, I am glad that you have come up; for what I was about to say to my master I would prefer to say in your presence. When my lady is brought into this house, and laid before us dead, what will your feelings be? My master has done his duty by her in love; but you--you have made her life a misery. Yes, ma'am, you have."

"Hoity-toity!" muttered Miss Carlyle, staring at Joyce in consternation.

"What is all this? Where's my lady?"

"She has gone and taken the life that was not hers to take," sobbed Joyce, "and I say she has been driven to it. She has not been allowed to indulge a will of her own, poor thing, since she came to East Lynne; in her own house she has been less free than either of her servants. You have curbed her, ma'am, and snapped at her, and you made her feel that she was but a slave to your caprices and temper. All these years she has been crossed and put upon; everything, in short, but beaten--ma'am, you know she has--and has borne it all in silence, like a patient angel, never, as I believe, complaining to master; he can say whether she has or not. We all loved her, we all felt for her; and my master's heart would have bled had he suspected what she had to put up with day after day, and year after year."

Miss Carlyle's tongue was glued to her mouth. Her brother, confounded at the rapid words, could scarcely gather in their sense.

"What is it that you are saying, Joyce?" he asked, in a low tone. "I do not understand."

"I have longed to say it to you many a hundred times, sir; but it is right that you should hear it, now things have come to this dreadful ending. Since the very night Lady Isabel came home here, your wife, she had been taunted with the cost she has brought to East Lynne and to you.

If she wanted but the simplest thing, she was forbidden to have it, and told that she was bringing her husband to poverty. For this very dinner party that she went to to-night she wished for a new dress, and your cruel words, ma'am, forbade her having it. She ordered a new frock for Miss Isabel, and you countermanded it. You have told her that master worked like a dog to support her extravagances, when you know that she never was extravagant; that none were less inclined to go beyond proper limits than she. I have seen her, ma'am, come away from your reproaches with the tears in her eyes, and her hands meekly clasped upon her bosom, as though life was heavy to bear. A gentle-spirited, high-born lady, as I know she was, could not fail to be driven to desperation; and I know that she has been."

Mr. Carlyle turned to his sister. "Can this be true?" he inquired, in a tone of deep agitation.

She did not answer. Whether it was the shade cast by the nightcap, or the reflection of the wax taper, her face looked of a green cast, and, for the first time probably in Miss Carlyle's life, her words failed her.

"May G.o.d forgive you, Cornelia!" he muttered, as he went out of the chamber.

He descended to his own. That his wife had laid violent hands upon herself, his reason utterly repudiated, she was one of the least likely to commit so great a sin. He believed that, in her unhappiness, she might have wandered out in the grounds, and was lingering there. By this time the house was aroused, and the servants were astir. Joyce--surely a supernatural strength was given her, for though she had been able to put her foot to the ground, she had not yet walked upon it--crept downstairs, and went into Lady Isabel's dressing-room. Mr. Carlyle was hastily a.s.suming the articles of attire he had not yet put on, to go out and search the grounds, when Joyce limped in, holding out a note. Joyce did not stand on ceremony that night.

"I found this in the dressing-gla.s.s drawer, sir. It is my lady's writing."

He took it in his hand and looked at the address--"Archibald Carlyle."

Though a calm man, one who had his emotions under his own control, he was no stoic, and his fingers shook as he broke the seal.

"When years go on, and my children ask where their mother is, and why she left them, tell them that you, their father, goaded her to it. If they inquire what she is, tell them, also, if you so will; but tell them, at the same time, that you outraged and betrayed her, driving her to the very depth of desperation ere she quitted them in her despair."

The handwriting, his wife's, swam before the eyes of Mr. Carlyle. All, save the disgraceful fact that she had flown--and a horrible suspicion began to dawn upon him, with whom--was totally incomprehensible. How had he outraged her? In what manner had he goaded her to it. The discomforts alluded to by Joyce, and the work of his sister, had evidently no part in this; yet what had he done? He read the letter again, more slowly. No he could not comprehend it; he had not the clue.

At that moment the voices of the servants in the corridor outside penetrated his ears. Of course they were peering about, and making their own comments. Wilson, with her long tongue, the busiest. They were saying that Captain Levison was not in his room; that his bed had not been slept in.

Joyce sat on the edge of a chair--she could not stand--watching her master with a blanched face. Never had she seen him betray agitation so powerful. Not the faintest suspicion of the dreadful truth yet dawned upon her. He walked to the door, the open note in his hand; then turned, wavered, and stood still, as if he did not know what he was doing.

Probably he did not. Then he took out his pocket-book, put the note inside it, and returned it to his pocket, his hands trembling equally with his livid lips.

"You need not mention this," he said to Joyce, indicating the note. "It concerns myself alone."

"Sir, does it say she's dead?"

"She is not dead," he answered. "Worse than that," he added in his heart.

"Why--who's this?" uttered Joyce.

It was little Isabel, stealing in with a frightened face, in her white nightgown. The commotion had aroused her.

"What's the matter?" she asked. "Where's mamma?"

"Child, you'll catch your death of cold," said Joyce. "Go back to bed."

"But I want mamma."

"In the morning, dear," evasively returned Joyce. "Sir, please, must not Isabel go back to bed?"

Mr. Carlyle made no reply to the question; most likely he never heard its import. But he touched Isabel's shoulder to draw Joyce's attention to the child.