Pearl #3

We went to New York. Matilda Heron was then playing her first engagement

at Wallack’s Theatre. The day after I arrived I secured a couple of orchestra

seats, and before the curtain rose Minnie and I were installed in our places—I

full of anticipation, she, as all prejudging critics are, determined to be terribly

severe if she got a chance.

We were too well bred, too well brought up, too well educated, and too

cosmopolitan, to feel any qualms about the morality of the play. We had read it

in the French under the title of La Dame aux Camélias, and it was now produced

in dramatic form under the title of “Camille.”

If my wife did not get a chance for criticism, she at least got a sensation. Miss Heron’s first entrance was wonderfully unconventional. The woman dared to

come in upon that painted scene as if it really was the home apartment it was

represented to be. She did not slide in with her face to the audience, and waited for

the mockery that is called “a reception.” She walked in easily, naturally,

unwitting of any outside eyes. The petulant manner in which she took off her

shawl, the commonplace conversational tone in which she spoke to her servant,

were revelations to Minnie and myself. Here was a daring reality. Here was a

woman who, sacrificing for the moment all conventional prejudices, dared to

play the lorette as the lorette herself plays her dramatic life, with all her whims,

her passion, her fearlessness of consequences, her occasional vulgarities, her

impertinence, her tenderness and self-sacrifice

It was not that we did not see faults. Occasionally Miss Heron’s accent was

bad, and had a savor of Celtic origin. But what mattered accent, or what

mattered elocution, when we felt ourselves in the presence of an inspired

woman!

Miss Heron’s Camille electrified both Minnie and myself. My wife was

particularly bouleversée. The artist we were beholding had not in a very marked

manner any of those physical advantages which Minnie had predicated in her

onslaught on the dramatic stars. It is true that Miss Heron’s figure was

commanding, and there was a certain powerful light in her eyes that startled and

thrilled; but there was not the beauty of the “favorite actress.” The conquest that she achieved was purely intellectual and magnetic.

Of course we were present at the next performance. It was “Medea.” We then

beheld the great actress under a new phase. In Camille she died for love; in

Medea was killed for love. I never saw a human being so rocked by emotion as

was my wife during the progress of this tragedy. Her countenance was a mirror

of every incident and passion. She swayed to and fro under those gusts of

indignant love that the actress sent forth from time to time, and which swept the

house like a storm. When the curtain fell she sat trembling—vibrating still with

those thunders of passion that the swift lightning of genius had awakened. She

seemed almost in a dream, as I took her to the carriage, and during the drive to our hotel she was moody and silent. It was in vain that I tried to get her to

converse about the play. That the actress was great, she acknowledged in the

briefest possible sentence. Then she leaned back and seemed to fall into a reverie

from which nothing would arouse her.

I ordered supper into our sitting-room, and made Minnie drink a couple of

glasses of champagne in the hope that it would rouse her into some state of mental activity. All my efforts, however, were without avail. She was silent and

strange, and occasionally shivered as if penetrated with a sudden chill. Shortly

after, she pleaded weariness and retired for the night, leaving me puzzled more

than ever by the strangeness of her case.

An hour or two afterward, when I went to bed, I found Minnie apparently

asleep. Never had she seemed more beautiful. Her lips were like a bursting

rosebud about to blow under the influence of a perfumed wind, just parted as

they were by the gentle breath that came and went. The long, dark lashes that

swept over her cheek gave a pensive charm to her countenance, which was

heightened by a rich stray of nutty hair that swept loosely across her bosom,

tossed in the restlessness of slumber. I printed a light kiss upon her forehead,

and, with an unuttered prayer for her welfare, lay down to rest.

I know not how long I had been asleep when I was awakened from a profound

slumber by one of those indescribable sensations of mortal peril which seem to

sweep over the soul, and with as it were the thrill of its passage call louder than a

trumpet, Awake ! arouse ! your life hangs by the hair! That this strange physical

warning is in all cases the result of a magnetic phenomenon I have not the

slightest doubt. To prove it, steal softly, ever so softly, to the bedside of a

sleeper, and, although no noise betrays your presence, the slumberer will almost

invariably awakened, aroused by a magnetic perception of your proximity. How

much more powerfully must be the stealthy approach of one who harbors sinister

designs affect the slumbering victim! An antagonistic magnetism hovers near;

the whole of the subtile currents that course through the electrical machine

known as man are shocked with a powerful repulsion, and the sentinel mind

whose guard has just been relieved, and which is slumbering in its quarters,

suddenly hears the rappel beaten and leaps to arms.

In the midst of my deep sleep I sprang with a sudden bound upright, with every

faculty alert. By one of those unaccountable mysteries of our being, I realized,

before my eyes could be by any possibility alive to external objects, the presence

of a great horror. Simultaneously with this conviction, or following it so quickly

as to be almost twin with it, I beheld the vivid flash of a knife, and felt an acute

pain in my shoulder. The next instant all was plain, as if the scene, instead of

passing in a half-illuminated bedroom, had occurred in the full sunlight of the

orient. My wife was standing by my bedside, her hands firmly pinioned in mine,

while on the white coverlet lay a sharp table-knife red with the blood which was

pouring from a deep wound in my shoulder. I had escaped death by a miracle.

Another instant and the long blade would have been driven through my heart. I never was so perfectly self-possessed as on that terrible occasion. I forced

Minnie sat on the bed, while I looked calmly into her face. She returned my

gaze with a sort of serene defiance.

“Minnie,” I said, “I loved you dearly. Why did you do this?

“I was weary of you,” she answered, in a cold, even voice—a voice so level

that it seemed to be spoken on ruled lines—“that is my reason

Great heavens! I was not prepared for this sanguinary calm. I had looked for

perhaps sonic indication of somnambulism; I had vaguely hoped even for the

incoherence or vehemence of speech which would have gotten a sudden

insanity—anything, everything but this awful avowal of a deliberate design to

murder a man who loved her better than the life she sought! Still I clung to hope.

I could not believe that this gentle, refined creature could deliberately quit my

side at midnight, possess herself of the very knife which had been used at the

table, across which I lavished a thousand fond attentions, and remorselessly

endeavor to stab me to the heart. It must be the act of one insane, or laboring

under some momentary hallucination. I was determined to test her further. I adopted

a tone of vehement reproach, hoping, if insanity was smouldering in her brain, to

fan the embers to such a flame as would leave no doubt in my mind. I would

rather she should be mad than feel that she hated me.

“Woman!” I thundered fiercely, “you must have the mind of a fiend to repay

my love in this manner. Beware of my vengeance. Your punishment shall be

terrible.”

“Punish me,” she answered; and oh! how serene and distant her voice sounded!

—“punish me how and when you will. It will not matter much.” The tones were

calm, assured, and fearless. The manner is perfectly coherent. A terrible suspicion

shot across my mind.

“Have I a rival?” I asked; “is it a guilty love that has prompted you to plan my

death? If so, I am sorry you did not kill me

“I do not know any other man whom I love. I cannot tell why it is that I do not

love you. You are very kind and considerate, but your presence wears me. I

sometimes see vaguely, as in a dream, my ideal of a husband, but he has no

existence saves in my soul, and I suppose I shall never meet him

“Minnie, you are mad!” I cried, despairingly.

“Am I?” she answered, with a faint, sad smile slowly overspreading her pale

face, like the dawn breaking imperceptibly over a cold gray lake. “Well, you can

think so if you will. It is all one to me

I never beheld such apathy—such stoical indifference. Had she exhibited fierce rage, disappointment at her failure, a mad thirst for my life-blood, I should have

preferred it to this awful stagnation of sensibility, this frozen stillness of the

heart. I felt all my nature hardened suddenly toward her. It seemed to me as if my face became fixed and stern as a bronze head.

“You are an inexplicable monster,” I said, in tones that startled myself, they

were so cold and metallic “and I shall not try to decipher you. I will use every

endeavor to ascertain, however, whether it is some species of insanity that has

this afflicted you, or whether you are ruled by the most vicious soul that ever

inhabited a human body. You shall return to my house tomorrow, when I will

place you under the charge of Doctor Melony. You will live in the strictest

seclusion. I need not tell you that, after what has happened, you must henceforth

be a stranger to your daughter. Hands crimsoned with her father’s blood are not

those that I would see caressing her

“Very well. It is all one to me where I am, or how I live

“Go to bed.”

She went, calmly as a well-taught child, coolly turning over the pillow on

which sprinkled the blood from the wound in my shoulder, so as to present

the underside for her beautiful, guilty head to repose on; gently removed the

murderous knife, which was still lying on the coverlet, and placed it on a little

table by the side of the bed, and then without a word calmly composed herself to

sleep.

It was inexplicable. I staunched my wound and sat down to think.

What was the meaning of it all? I had visited many lunatic asylums, and had,

as one of the various items in my course of study, read much on the phenomena

of insanity, which had always been exceedingly interesting to me for this reason:

I thought it might be that only through the aberrated intellect can we approach

the secrets of the normal mind. The castle, fortified and garrisoned at every

angle and loophole, guards its interior mysteries; it is only when the fortress

crumbles that we can force our way inside, and detect the secret of its masonry,

its form, and the theory of its construction.

But in all my researches I had never met with any symptoms of a diseased mind similar to these my wife exhibited. There was a uniform coherence that

completely puzzled me. Her answers to my questions were complete and

determinate—that is, they left no room for what is called cross-examination

No man ever spent such a night of utter despair as I did, watching in that dimly

lit chamber until dawn, while she, my would-be murderess, lay plunged in so

profound and calm a slumber that she might have been a weary angel rather than a self-possessed demon. The mystery of her guilt was maddening; and I sat

hour after hour in my easy-chair, seeking in vain for a clew, until the dawn,

spectral and gray, arose over the city. Then I packed up all our luggage, and

wandered restlessly over the house until the usual hour for rising had struck.

On returning to my room I found my wife just completing her toilet. To my

consternation and horror she flung herself into my arms as I entered.

“O Gerald!” she cried, “I have been so frightened. What has brought all this

blood on the pillow and the sheets? Where have you been? When I awoke and

missed you and discovered these stains, I knew not what to think. Are you hurt?

What is the matter?

I stared at her. There was not a trace of conscious guilt in her countenance. It

was the most consummate acting. Its very perfection made me the more

relentless.

“There is no necessity for this hypocrisy,” I said.“; It will not alter my resolve.

We depart for home today. Our luggage is packed, the bills are all paid. Speak

to me, I pray to you, as little as possible

“What is it? Am I dreaming? O Gerald, my darling! what have I done, or what

has come over you?” She almost shrieked these queries.

“You know as well as I do, you fair-faced monster. You tried to murder me last

night, when I was asleep. There’s your mark on my shoulder. A loving signature,

is it not?”

I bared my shoulder as I spoke, and exposed the wound. She gazed wildly in

my face for a moment, then tottered and fell. I lifted her up and placed her on the

bed. She did not faint, and had enough strength left to ask me to leave her alone

for a few moments. I quitted her with a glance of contempt, and went down

stairs to make arrangements for our journey. After an absence of about an hour I

returned to our apartments. I found her sitting placidly in an easy-chair, looking

out of the window. She scarcely noticed my entrance, and the same old, distant

look was on her face.

“We start at three o’clock. Are you ready?” I said to her.

“Yes. I need no preparation.” Evenly, calmly uttered, without even turning her

head to look at nie.

“You have recovered your memory, it seems,” I said. “You wasted your

histrionic talents this morning

“Did I?” She smiled with the most perfect serenity, arranged herself more

easily in her chair, and leaned back as if in a revere. I was enraged beyond

endurance, and left the room abruptly. That evening saw us on our way home. Throughout the journey she maintained

the same apathetic air. We scarcely exchanged a word. The instant we reached

our house I assigned apartments to her, strictly forbidding her to move from

them, and despatched a messenger for Doctor Melony. Minnie, on her part, took

possession of her prison without a word. She did not even ask to see our darling

little Pearl, who was a thousand times more beautiful and engaging than ever.

Melony arrived, and I laid the awful facts before him. The poor man was

terribly shocked.

“Depend on it, it’s opium,” he said. “Let me see her

An hour afterward he came to me.

It’s not opium, and it’s not insanity,” he said; “it must be somnambulism. I find

symptoms, however, that puzzle me beyond all calculation. That she is not in her

normal condition of mind is evident; but I cannot discover the cause of this

unnatural excitement. She is coherent, logical, but perfectly apathetic to all

outward influences. At first I was certain that she was a victim of opium. Now I

feel convinced that I was entirely wrong. It must be somnambulism. I will reside

for a time in the house, and trust me to discover this mystery. Meanwhile she

must be carefully watched

Melony was as good as his word. He watched her incessantly, and reported to

me her condition. The poor man was dreadfully puzzled. The strictest

surveillance failed to elicit the slightest evidence of her taking any stimulants,

although she remained almost all the time in the apathetic state which was so

terrible to behold. The Doctor endeavored to arouse her by reproaches for her

attempt on my life. She, in return, only smiled, and replied that it was a matter in

which she had no further interest. Not a trace of any somnambulistic habit could

be discovered. I was thoroughly wretched. I secluded myself from all society but

that of Melony; and had it not been for him and my darling little Pearl I am

certain that I should have gone mad. Most of the days I spent wandering in

the great woods which lay in the neighborhood of my farm, and my evenings I

endeavored to divert with reading or a chat with the good Doctor. Yet, talk of

what we might, the conversation would always return to the same melancholy

topic. It was a maze of sorrow in which we invariably, no matter in what

direction we wandered, brought up at the same spot.

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