The Heavenly Twins by Madame Sarah Grand

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It was a sad face, as high-bred faces often are. You would not have been
surprised to hear that his life had been blighted at the outset by some
great sorrow or disappointment. But it was a strong face too, the face of
a manly man, you would have said, and of one with self-denial, courage,
endurance, and devotion enough for a hero and a martyr.

"Angelica," her grandfather broke in upon her reflections with kindly
concern. "You look pale. Do you not feel well, my dear child?"

"Not exactly, thank you," Angelica answered mendaciously, with formal
politeness, hoping thereby to save herself the annoyance of further
remarks; then inwardly added, "sick at heart, in very truth," to save her
conscience, which was painfully sensitive just then. When anyone addressed
her, thought was suspended by the effort to answer, after which the rush
returned, but the current had usually set in a new direction, as was now
the case. Her uncle, as seen in the mirror, gave place, when she had
spoken, to the Tenor's long low room as she had seen it that afternoon;
"The light shone in and showed the shabby places. Should the light be shut
out to conceal what is wrong? Oh, no! Show up, expose, make evident. Let
in knowledge, the light--"

But here her grandfather arose. The evening was to end with service in the
chapel. "Will you come, Angelica?" he asked. "Do you feel equal to the
exertion?"

"Oh, yes," Angelica answered indifferently, letting herself go again to
drift with the stream.

The private chapel at Morne was lavishly decorated, an ideal shrine the
beauty of which alone would have inclined your heart to prayer and praise
by reason of the pleasure it gave you, and of the desire, which is always
apart of this form of pleasure, to express your gratitude in some sort.

On this occasion the altar was brilliantly illuminated, and as she passed
in before Lord Dawne, she was attracted like a child by the light, and
stationed herself so as to see it fully, admiring it as a spectator, but
only so. The scene, although familiar, was always impressive, being so
beautiful; and as she settled herself on a chair apart her spirit revived
under its influence enough to enable her to entertain the hope that, by
force of habit and association, that sensation of well-being which is due
to the refined and delicate flattery of the senses, a soothing without
excitement, merging in content, and restful to the verge of oblivion,
would steal over her and gradually possess her to the exclusion of all
importunate and painful thought. And this was what happened.

It came at a pause in the service when the people bent their heads, and
seemed to wait; or rather followed upon that impressive moment as did the
organ prelude, and the first notes of a glorious voice--the voice of a
woman who suddenly sang.

Angelica looked up amazed by the fervour of it, while a feeling, not new,
but strange from its intensity, took possession of her, steeping her soul
in bliss, a feeling that made her both tremble and be glad. She thought no
more of the lonely grave, but of an angel in ecstasy, an angel in heaven.
She looked around, she raised her eyes to the altar, she tried to seize
upon some idea which should continue with her, and be a key with which she
could unlock this fountain of joy hereafter when she would. She almost
felt for the moment as if it would be worthy to grovel for such opium at
the knees of an oleosaccharine priest and contribute to his support
forever. She tried to think of something to which to compare the feeling,
but in vain. In the effort to fix it her mind and memory became a blank,
and for a blissful interval she could not think, she could only feel. Then
came the inevitable moment of grateful acknowledgment when her senses
brought of their best to pay for their indulgence--their best on this
occasion being that vow to Israfil which presently she found herself
renewing. She would indeed be true.

After this surfeit of sensuous distraction she retired to her room, the
old room, as far away from Diavolo's as possible, which she had always
occupied at the castle. She dismissed her maid, and sat down to think; but
she was suffering from nervous irritability by this time, and could not
rest. She drew up a blind and looked out of the open window. The night was
calm, the air was freshly caressing, a crescent moon hung in the indigo
sky, and there were stars, bright stars. Up from the pine woods which
clothed the castle hill balsamic airs were wafted, and murmurs came as of
voices inviting--friendly voices of nature claiming a kinship with her,
which she herself had recognized from her earliest childhood. Out there in
the open was the unpolluted altar at which she was bidden to worship, and
in view of that, with the healthy breath of night expanding her lungs
revivingly, she felt that her late experiences, in the midst of perfumes
too sweet to be wholesome, and with the help of accessories too luxurious
to be anything but enervating, had been degrading to that better part of
her to which the purity and peace of night appealed. She would go shrive
herself in haunted solitudes, and listen to the voice which spoke to her
heart alone, saying "Only be true," in the silence of those scenes
incomparable which tend to reverence, promote endeavour, and prolong love.

She went to her door, opened it, looked out, and listened. The corridor
was all in darkness; an excessive silence pervaded the place; the whole
household had apparently retired.

With confident steps, although in the dark, Angelica went to Diavolo's
room, and presently returned with a suit of his clothes. These she put on,
and then, without haste, went downstairs, crossed the hall, opened a
narrow door which led into a dark, damp, flagged passage, along which she
groped for some distance, then descended a crooked stone staircase at the
foot of which was a heavy door. This she opened with a key, careless of
the noise she made, and found herself out in the open air, under the
stars, on a gravel walk, with a broad lawn stretched before her. She stood
a moment, breathing deeply in pure enjoyment of the air, then put up both
hands to rearrange a little cloth cap she wore which was slipping from off
her abundant hair. Then she threw up her arms and stretched every limb in
the joy of perfect freedom from restraint; and then with strong bounds she
cleared the grassy space, dashed down a rocky step, and found herself a
substance amongst the shadows out in the murmuring woods.

When she returned she was making less vigorous demonstrations of
superabundant strength and vitality, but still her step was swift, firm,
and elastic; and she was running up the grand staircase from the hall when
she saw that the door at the top, leading into the suite of rooms occupied
by Lord Dawne when he was at the castle, was wide open, showing the room
beyond, brilliantly lighted.

She would have to pass that open door or stay downstairs till it was shut;
but the latter she did not feel inclined to do, so, with scarcely a pause
to nerve herself for what might happen, she continued rapidly to ascend
the stairs.

As she expected, when she reached the top, her uncle appeared.

"Oh!" he exclaimed in surprise, seeing Diavolo as he supposed emerging
from the darkness. "I thought it was Angelica's step. I fancied I heard
her go down some time ago, and I have been waiting for her. She complained
of not feeling well this evening, and I thought she might possibly want
something. Come in." He had turned to lead the way as he spoke.
"By-the-bye," he broke off, "what are you doing here, you young rascal?"

Angelica, overcome by one of her mischievous impulses, and grinning
broadly, boldly followed her uncle into the room.

"I had forgotten for a moment that you ought not to be here, it is so
natural to find you marauding about the place at night," he pursued,
bending down to adjust the wick of a lamp that was flaring as he spoke.
Angelica sat down, and coolly waited for him to turn and look at her,
which he did when he had done with the lamp, meeting her dark eyes
unsuspectingly at first, then with fixed attention inquiringly.

"Angelica!" he exclaimed. "How can you!"

"I have been out in the woods," she rejoined with her accustomed candour.
"The suffocating fumes of incense and orthodoxy overpowered me in the
chapel, and I was miserable besides--soul-sick. But the fresh air is a
powerful tonic, and it has exhilarated me, the stars have strengthened me,
the voices of the night spoke peace to me, and the pleasant creatures,
visible and invisible, gave me welcome as one of themselves, and showed me
how to attain to their joy in life." She bent forward to brush some fresh
earth from the leg of her trousers. "But you would have me forego these
innocent, healthy-minded, invigorating exercises, I suppose, because I am
a woman," she pursued. "You would allow Diavolo to disport himself so at
will, and approve rather than object, although he is not so strong as I
am. And then these clothes, which are decent and convenient for him,
besides being a greater protection than any you permit me to wear, you
think immodest for me--you mass of prejudice."

Lord Dawne made no reply. He had taken a seat, and remained with his eyes
fixed on the floor for some seconds after she had spoken. There was
neither agreement nor dissent in his attitude, however; he was simply
reflecting,

"What is it, Angelica?" he said at last, looking her full in the face,

"What is what?" she asked defiantly.

"What Is the matter?" he answered, "There is something wrong, I see, and
if it is anything that you would like to talk about--I don't pretend to
offer yon advice, but sometimes when one speaks--you know, however, what a
comfort it is to 'talk a thing out,' as you used to call it when you were
a little girl." He looked at her and smiled. When she entered the room
fresh from the open air a brilliant colour glowed in her cheeks, but now
she was pale to her lips, which, perceiving, caused him to rise hastily,
and add: "But I am afraid you have tired yourself, and"--glancing at the
clock--"it is nearly breakfast time. I'll go and get you something."

After a considerable interval he returned with a tray upon which was a
plentiful variety of refreshments, prawns in aspic jelly, cold chicken and
tongue, a freshly opened tin of _pate de foie gras_, cake, bread,
butter, and champagne.

"I think I've brought everything," he remarked, surveying the tray
complacently when he had put it down upon a table beside her.

"You've forgotten the salt," snapped Angelica,

His complacency vanished, and he retired apologetically to remedy the
omission.

"Do you remember the night you and Diavolo taught me where to find food in
my father's house?" he asked when he returned.

"Yes," Angelica answered with a grin; and then she expanded into further
reminiscences of that occasion, by which time she was in such a good
humour that she began to feel hungry, and under the stimulating influences
of food and champagne she told her uncle the whole story of her intimacy
with the Tenor.

Lord Dawne listened with interest, but almost in silence. The occasion was
not one, as it appeared to him, which it would be well to improve. He
discussed the matter with her, however, as well as he could without
offering her advice or expressing an opinion of her conduct; and, in
consequence of this wise forbearance on his part, she found herself the
better in every way for the interview.

CHAPTER VII.

Angelica awoke unrefreshed after a few hours of light and restless sleep,
much broken by dreams. "Dead! dead!" was the first thought in her mind,
but it came unaccompanied by any feeling. "Is Israfil really dead--buried--
gone from us all forever?" she asked herself in a kind of wonder. It was
not at the thought of his death that she was wondering, however, but
because the recollection of it did not move her in any way. Reflections
which had caused her the sharpest misery only yesterday recurred to her
now without affecting her in the least degree--except in that they made
her feel herself to be a kind of monster of callousness, coldness, and
egotism. The lonely grave, looking deserted already, with the
rain-bespattered, mud-bedraggled flowers fading upon it; the man himself
as she had known him; his goodness, his kindness, the disinterested
affection he had lavished upon her--she dwelt upon these things; she
racked her brain to recall them in order to reawaken her grief and
remorse, but in vain. Mind and memory responded to the effort, but her own
heart she could not touch. The acute stage was over for the moment, and a
most distressing numbness, attended by a sense of chilliness and general
physical discomfort, had succeeded it. The rims of her eyes were red and
the lids still swollen by the tears of the day before; but the state of
weeping, with the nervous energy and mental excitement which had been the
first consequence of the shock, was a happy one compared with the dry
inhuman apathy of this, and she strove to recall it, but only succeeded in
adding the old sensation of discontent with everything as it is and
nothing is worth while to her already deep depression. She loved order and
regularity in a household, but now the very thought of the old accustomed
dull routine of life at the castle exasperated her. After her grandfather
would come her uncle, and after him in all human probability Diavolo would
succeed, and there would be a long succession of solemn servants, each
attending to the same occupations which had been carried on by other
servants in the same place for hundreds of years; horrible monotony, all
tending to nothing! For she saw as in a vision the end of the race to
which she belonged. They and their like were doomed, and, with them, the
distinguished bearing, the high-bred reserve, the refined simplicity and
dignity of manner which had held them above the common herd, a class
apart, until she came, were also doomed, "I am of the day," she said to
herself; "the vulgar outcome of a vulgar era, bred so, I suppose, that I
may see through others, which is to me the means of self-defence, I see
that in this dispute of 'womanly or unwomanly,' the question to be asked
is, not 'What is the pursuit?' but 'What are the proceeds?' No social
law-maker ever _said_ 'Catch me letting a woman into anything that
pays!' It was left for me to translate the principle into the vernacular."

She breakfasted upstairs so that she might not have to talk, but went down
immediately afterward in order to find somebody to speak to, so rapid were
the alternations of her moods. It was not in Angelica's nature to conceal
anything she had done from her friends for long, and before she had been
twenty-four hours at the castle she had taken her Aunt Claudia, and the
lady known to them all intimately as "Ideala," into her confidence; but
neither of them attempted to improve the occasion. They said even less
than her uncle had done, and this reticence perplexed Angelica. She would
have liked them to make much of her wickedness, to have reasoned with her,
lectured her, and incited her to argue. She did not perceive, as they did,
that she was one of those who must work out their own salvation in fear
and trembling, and she was angry with them because they continued their
ordinary avocations as if nothing had happened when everything had gone so
wrong with her,

The weary day dragged its slow length along. A walk about the grounds,
luncheon, a long drive, calling at Ilverthorpe on the way back for letters;
afternoon tea with her grandfather in the oriel room, and afterward the
accustomed wait with bowed head for the chime, which floated up at last
from afar, distinct, solemn, slow, and weary like the voice of one who
vainly repeats a blessed truth to ears that will not hear:

[Illustration: (musical notation); lyrics: He, watch-ing o-ver Is--ra--el,
slumbers not, nor sleeps.]

Her grandfather raised his velvet cap, and held it above his bald head
while he repeated the words aloud, after which he muttered a prayer for
the restoration of "Holy Church," then rose, and, leaning heavily on his
ebony stick, walked from the room with the springless step of age,
accompanied by his daughter Claudia and his son, and followed by two deer
hounds, old and faithful friends who seldom left him. When the door closed
upon this little procession, Angelica found herself alone with her aunt
Lady Fulda, to whom she had not spoken since the day before. They were
sitting near to each other, Angelica being in the window, from whence she
had looked down upon the tree-tops and the distant city while they waited
for the chime, the melancholy cadence of which had added something to the
chill misery of her mood.

"Do you still believe it?" she asked ironically, and then felt as if she
were always asking that question in that tone.

Lady Fulda had also looked about as she listened, but now she left the
window, and, taking a seat opposite to Angelica, answered bravely, her
face lighting up as she spoke: "I do believe it."

"Then why did he let a man like that die?" Angelica asked defiantly. "Why
did he create such a man at all merely to kill him? Wouldn't a commoner
creature have done as well?"

"We are not told that any creature is common in his sight," Lady Fulda
answered gently. "But suppose they were, would a common creature have
produced the same effect upon you?"

"Do you mean to say you think he was created to please me--"

"Oh, no, not that," Lady Fulda hastily interposed, and Angelica,
perceiving that she had at last found somebody who would kindly improve
the occasion, turned round from the window, and settled herself for a
fray. "And I don't mean," Lady Fulda pursued, "I dare not presume to
question; but still--oh, I must say it! Your heart has been very hard.
Would anything but death have touched you so? Had not every possible
influence been vainly tried before that to soften you?"

Angelica smiled disagreeably. "You are insinuating that he died for me, to
save my soul," she politely suggested.

Her aunt took no notice of the sneer. "Oh, not for you alone," she
answered earnestly; "but for all the hundreds upon whom you, in your
position, and with your attractions, will bring the new power of your
goodness to bear. You cannot think, with all your scepticism, that such a
man has lived and died for nothing. You must have some knowledge or idea
of the consequences of such a life in such a world, of the influence for
good of a great talent employed as his was, the one as an example and the
other as a power to inspire and control."

Angelica did not attempt to answer this, and there was a pause; then she
began again; "I did grasp something of what you mean, I saw for a moment
the beauty of holiness, and the joy of it continued with me for a little.
Then I went to tell Israfil. I was determined to be true, and I should
have been true had I not lost him; but now my heart is harder than ever,
and I shall be worse than I was before."

"Oh, no!" her aunt exclaimed, "you are deceiving yourself. If you had
found him there that day, your good resolutions would only have lasted
until you had bound him to you--enslaved him; and then, although you would
have carefully avoided breaking the letter of the law, you would have
broken the spirit; you would have tried to fascinate him, and bring him
down to your own level; you would have made him loathe himself, and then
you would have mocked him."

"Like the evil-minded heroine of a railway novel!" Angelica began, then
added doggedly: "You wrong me, Aunt Fulda. There is no one whose respect I
valued more. There is nothing in right or reason I would not have done to
win it--that is to say, if there had been anything I could have done. But
I do not think now that there was." This last depressing thought brought
about another of those rapid revulsions of feeling to which she had been
subject during these latter days, and she broke off for a moment, then
burst out afresh to just the opposite effect: "I do not know, though. I am
not sure of anything. Probably you are right, and I deceived myself. I
inherit bad principles from my ancestors, and it may be that I can no more
get rid of them than I could get rid of the gout or any other hereditary
malady, by simply resolving to cure myself. It is different with you. You
were born good. I was born bad, and delight in my wickedness."

"Angelica!" her aunt remonstrated, "do not talk in that reckless way."

"Well, I exaggerate," Angelica allowed, veering again, as the wind does in
squally weather before it sets steadily from a single quarter. "But what
have I done after all that you should take me to task so seriously? Wrong,
certainly; but still I have not broken a single commandment."

"Not one of the Decalogue, perhaps; but you have sinned against the whole
spirit of uprightness. Has it never occurred to you that you may keep the
ten commandments strictly, and yet be a most objectionable person? You
might smoke, drink, listen at doors, repeat private conversations, open
other people's letters, pry amongst their papers, be vulgar and offensive
in conversation, and indecent in dress--altogether detestable, if your
code of morality were confined to the ten commandments. But why will you
talk like this, Angelica? Why will you be so defiant, when your heart is
breaking, as I know it is?"

Angelica hid her face in her hands with one dry sob that made her whole
frame quiver.

"Oh, do not be so hard!" the other woman implored. "Listen to your own
heart, listen to all that is best in yourself; you have good impulses
enough, I know you have; and you have been called to the Higher Life more
than once, but you would not hear."

"Yes"--thoughtfully--"but it is no use--no help. I never profit by
experiences because I don't object to things while they are happening. It
is only afterward, when all the excitement is over and I have had time to
reflect, that I become dissatisfied." And she threw herself back in her
easy-chair, crossed one leg over the other so as to display a fair amount
of slender foot and silk-clocked stocking, as it is the elegant fashion of
the day to do; clasped her hands behind her head, and fixed her eyes on
the ceiling, being evidently determined to let the subject drop.

Lady Fulda compressed her lips. She was baffled, and she was perplexed. A
quarter rang from the city clocks. "Do you know," she began again, "I have
a fancy--many people have--that a time comes to us all--an hour when we
are called upon to choose between good and evil. It is a quarter since we
heard the chime--"

"Only a quarter!" Angelica ejaculated. "It seems an age!"

"But suppose this is your hour," Lady Fulda patiently pursued. "One
precious quarter of it has gone already, and still you harden your heart.
You are asked to choose now, you are called to the Higher Life; you must
know that you are being called--specially--this moment. And what if it
should be for the last time? What if, after this, you are deprived of the
power to choose, and forced by that which is evil in you to wander away
from ail that is good and pure and pleasant into the turmoil and trouble,
the falseness, the illusion, and the maddening unrest of the other life?
You know it all. You can imagine what it would be when that last loophole
of escape, upon which we all rely--perhaps unconsciously--was closed, when
you knew you never could return; when you came to be shut out from hope, a
prey to remorse, a tired victim compelled to pursue excitement, and always
to pursue it, descending all the time, and finding it escape you more and
more till at last even that hateful resource was lost to you, and you
found yourself at the end of the road to perdition, a worn out woman, face
to face with despair!"

Angelica slowly unclasped her hands from behind her head, let her chin
sink on her chest, and looked up from under her eyebrows at her aunt. Her
eyes were bright, but otherwise her face was as still as a statue's, and
what she thought or felt it was impossible to say. "It is idle to talk of
choice," she answered coldly. "I _had_ chosen--honestly, I told you;
you see what has come of it!"

"Forgive me," said Lady Fulda, "but you had not chosen _honestly_.
You had not chosen the better life--to lead it for its own sake, but for
his. You wanted to bring yourself nearer to him, and you would have made
goodness a means to that end if you could. But you see it was not the
right way, and it has not succeeded."

Angelica sat up, and the dull look left her face. She seemed interested.
"You see through all my turpitude," she observed, affecting to smile,
although in truth she was more moved than her pride would allow her to
show.

Her aunt sighed, seeing no sign of softening. She feared it was labour
lost, but still she felt impelled to try once more before she renounced
the effort. She was nervous about it, however, being naturally diffident,
and hesitated, trying to collect her thoughts; and in the interval the
evening shadows deepened, the half hour chimed from the city clocks, and
then she spoke. "Just think," she said sadly--"Just think what it will be
when you have gone from here this evening--if you carry out your
determination and return after dinner; just think what it will be when you
find yourself alone again in that great house with the night before you;
and your aching heart, and your bitter thoughts, and the remorse which
gnaws without ceasing, for companions; and not one night of it only but
all the years to come, and every phase of it; from the sharp pain of this
moment to the dull discontent in which it ends and from which nothing on
earth will rouse you; think of yourself then without comfort and without
hope." Angelica changed her position uneasily. "You still hesitate," Lady
Fulda continued; "you are loath to commit yourself; you would rather not
choose; you prefer to believe yourself a puppet at the mercy of a
capricious demon who moves you this way and that as the idle fancy seizes
him. But you are no puppet. You have the right of choice; you _must_
choose; and, having chosen, if you look up, the Power Divine will be
extended to you to support you, or--but either way your choice will at
once become a force for good or evil."