The Heavenly Twins by Madame Sarah Grand

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"Perhaps if we turned down one of these side streets to the left, it would
be quieter, and we could talk," he suggested.

"I don't think I want either to be quiet or to talk," she said, suddenly
recovering her natural voice and tone.

"Well, what do you want, then?" he asked.

She looked up at him, and slackened her speed. "Perhaps, since you are so
good as to trouble yourself about me at all," she said, "I may venture to
ask if you will kindly tell me where in London I am?"

His manner instantly changed. "You are in Regent Street," he answered.

"And that lighted place behind us, where the crowd is--what is that?"

"You must mean Piccadilly Circus."

"And if I walk on what shall I come to?"

"Oxford Street. You don't seem to know London. Don't you live here?"

"I do not live in London."

"You have lost your way, perhaps; can I direct you anywhere?"

"No, thank you," she answered. "I can get into a hansom, you know, when I
am tired of this."

"If I might venture to advise, I should say do so at once," he rejoined,
slightly raising his hat as he spoke, and then he slipped behind her, and
furtively hurried across the street, a considerably perplexed man, I
fancied, and, judging by the way he peered to right and left as he went,
one who was suffering from some sudden dislike to being recognised.

Evadne paid as little heed to his departure as she had done to his
approach. A few steps farther brought her to a stand of hansom cabs. She
hesitated a moment, and then got into one. I took the next, and directed
the driver to follow her, being determined either to see her back to her
friends, or to interfere if I found that she meant to continue her ramble.
Her driver struck into Piccadilly at the next turn, and then drove
steadily west for about half an hour. By that time we had come to a row of
handsome houses, at one of which he stopped, and my man stopped also at an
intelligent distance behind, but Evadne never looked back. She got out and
ascended the steps with the leisurely air peculiar to her. The door was
opened as soon as she rang, and she entered. A moment later a footman came
out on to the pavement and paid the driver, with whom he exchanged a
remark or two. As he returned, the light from the hall streamed out upon
him, and I saw, with a sense of relief which made me realise what the
previous tension had been, that he wore the Hamilton-Wells livery, and
then I recognised the Hamilton-Wells' town house. The driver of the now
empty hansom turned his horse, and walked him slowly back in the direction
from which he had come. The incident was over; but what did it all mean?
The whole thing seemed so purposeless. What had taken her out at all? Was
it some jealous freak? Women have confessed to me that they watch their
husbands habitually. One said she did it for love of excitement: there was
always a risk of being caught, and nothing else ever amused her half so
much. Another declared she did it because she could not afford to employ a
private detective, and she wanted to have evidence always ready in case it
should suit her to part from her husband at any time. Another said she
loved her husband, and it hurt her less to know than to suspect. But I
could not really believe that Evadne would do such a thing for any reason
whatever. She was fearlessly upright and honest about her actions; and her
self-respect would have restrained her if ever an isolated impulse had
impelled her to such a proceeding. But still--

"Will you wait until the lady returns, sir?" the driver asked at last,
peeping down upon me through the trap in the roof. If he had not spoken I
might have sat there half the night, puzzling out the problem. Now,
however, that he had roused me, I determined to leave it for the present,
I remembered my duty to the friend with whom I was staying, and hurried
back, resolving to go to Evadne herself next day, and ask her point blank
to explain. I believed she would do so, for in all that concerned her own
pursuits--the doings of the day--I had always found her almost curiously
frank. After this wise determination, I ought to have been philosopher
enough to sleep upon the matter, but her ladyship's escapade cost me my
night's rest, and took me to her early next morning, in an angry and
irritable mood.

I sent up my card, and Evadne received me at once in Lady Adeline's
boudoir,

"This is an unexpected pleasure," she said. "How did you know I was in
town?"

"I saw you in Regent Street last night," I answered bluntly. "What were
you doing there?"

"What were you doing there yourself?" she said.

The question took me aback completely, and the more so as it was asked
with an unmistakable flash of merriment.

"Answer me my question first," I said. "You could have no business out
alone in London at that time of night, laying yourself open to insult."

"I don't recognise your right to question me at all," she answered,
unabashed.

"I have the right of any gentleman who does his duty when he sees a lady
making--"

"A fool of herself? Thanks," she said, laughing. "The privilege of
protecting a woman, of saving her even in spite of herself from the
effects of her own indiscretion, is one of which a man seldom avails
himself, and I did not understand you at first. Excuse me. But how do you
know I could have no business out at that time of night? Do you imagine
that you know all my duties in life?"

I was bewildered by her confidence--by her levity, I may say, but I
persisted.

"I cannot believe that you had any business or duty which necessitated
your being in a disreputable part of London alone late at night," I said.
"But I hope you will allow me the right of an intimate friend to warn you
if you run risks--in your ignorance."

"Or to reprove me if I do so with my eyes open?" she suggested.

"To ask for an explanation, at all events, if I do not understand what
your motive could be."

"You are very kind," she said. "You want me to excuse myself if I can,
otherwise you will be forced to suspect something unjustifiable."

"That is the literal truth," I answered.

She laughed. "But you have not answered _my_ question," she said.
"What were you doing there yourself?"

"I had been dining at the Charing Cross Hotel with a friend who had just
returned from India," I told her, "and I was walking back to the house of
the friend with whom I am staying. He lives in a street off Piccadilly."

"But what were you doing in Regent Street?"

"Following you."

She laughed again. "Did you see that old man speak to me?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Horrid old creature, is he not? He gave me such a start! Did you
recognise him?"

"Yes."

"I did not at first, but when I did, I thought I would make him useful."
She meditated for a little, then she said; "It did me good."

"What?" I asked.

"That start," she replied. "It quite roused me. But, now, tell me. I
should never have supposed that you had no business anywhere at any time;
why are you not equally charitable?"

I was silent.

"Tell me what you think took me there?"

"An unholy curiosity," I blurted out.

"That is an unholy inspiration which has only just occurred to you, and
you cannot entertain the suspicion for a moment," she said.

This was true.

"But, after all," she pursued, "what business have you to take me to task
like this? It is not a professional matter."

"I don't know that," I answered. This was another inspiration, and it
disconcerted her, for she changed countenance.

"You have a nice opinion of me!" she exclaimed.

"I have the highest opinion of you," I answered, "and nobody knows that
better than yourself. But what am I to think when I find you acting
without any discretion whatever?"

"Think that I am at the mercy of every wayward impulse."

"But I know that you are not," I replied; "and I am unhappy about you.
Will you trust me? Will you explain? Will you let me help you if I can? I
believe there is some trouble at the bottom of this business. Do tell me
all about it?"

"Well, I _will_ explain," she said, still laughing. "I was driving
past, and seeing you there, I thought I would horrify you, so I stopped
the carriage--"

"You got out of an omnibus!" I exclaimed.

"Well, that was my carriage for the time being," she answered, in no way
disconcerted. "You do not expect me to own that I was in an omnibus, do
you?"

"I wish you would be serious for a moment," I remonstrated. "I wish you
would tell me the truth."

"As I always do tell the truth if I tell anything, I think we had better
let the subject drop," she said, with a sigh, as if she were tired of it.

"You mean you cannot tell me?"

"That is what I mean."

I reflected for a moment. "Does Lady Adeline know that you were out last
night?" I asked.

"No," she replied. "She was out herself and I returned before she did.

"Then you have not told her either?"

She shook her head.

"I would really rather you confided in her than in me, if you can."

"Thank you," she answered drily.

"Can you?" I persisted.

"No, I cannot," was the positive rejoinder.

I rose to go. "Forgive my officiousness," I said. "I ventured to hope you
would make use of me, but I am afraid I have been forcing my services upon
you too persistently."

She rose impulsively, and held out both hands to me. "I wish I could thank
you," she said, looking up at me frankly and affectionately. "I wish I
could tell you how much I appreciate your goodness to me, and all your
disinterestedness. I wish I deserved it!" She clasped my hands warmly as
she spoke, then dropped them; and instantly I became conscious of an
indescribable sense of relief; and prepared to depart at once; but she
stopped me again with a word as I opened the door.

"Dr. Galbraith," she began, with another flash of merriment, "tell me, you
_were_ horrified, now, were you not?"

I jammed my hat on my head and left her. I did not mean to slam the door,
but her levity had annoyed me. I fancied her laughing as I descended the
stairs, and wondered at her mood, and yet I was re-assured by it. She
would not have been so merry if there had been anything really wrong, and
it was just possible that the half explanation she had given me and
withdrawn was the true one. She might have been in an omnibus for once for
some quite legitimate reason, and while it waited at Piccadilly Circus she
might have seen me as she had described, and got out in a moment of
mischief to astonish me. If that were her object, she had certainly
succeeded, and it seemed to me more likely than that she should just have
gone and returned for the sake of doing an unusual thing, which was the
only other explanation that occurred to me.

I saw Lady Adeline before I left the house, and found that Colonel
Colquhoun was not staying with them, nor did she seem to know that he had
been in town.

CHAPTER XII.

A cruel misfortune robbed me of a near relation at this time, and added
the rank of baronet, with a considerable increase of fortune, to my other
responsibilities. The increase of fortune was welcome in one way, as it
enabled me to enlarge a small private hospital which I had established on
my Fountain Towers estate, for the benefit of poor patients. Attending to
these, and to the buildings which were at once put in progress, was the
one absorbing interest of my life at that time.

During the next three months I only called once on Evadne, and that was a
mere formal visit which I felt in duty bound to pay her. I did not drive
past the house, either, oftener than I could help, but when I was obliged
to go that way I saw her, sitting sewing in her accustomed place, and she
would smile and bow to me--brightly at first, but after a time with a
wistful, weary expression, or I fancied so. It was of necessity a hurried
glimpse that I had, although my horse would slacken his speed of his own
accord as we approached the holly hedge that bounded her bower; but I
began to be uneasily aware of a change in her appearance. I might be
mistaken, but I certainly thought her eyes looked unnaturally large, as if
her cheeks had fallen away, and the little patient face was paler. In the
early summer, when she was well, she had been wont to flush upon the least
occasion, but now her colour did not vary, and I suspected that she was
again shutting herself up too much. Mrs. Orton Beg was at Fraylingay,
Diavolo was keeping his grandfather company at Morne, the Kilroys were in
town, the Hamilton-Wellses had gone to Egypt, and Colonel Colquhoun had
taken two months' leave and gone abroad also, so that she had no one near
her for whom she had any special regard. Colonel Colquhoun had called on
me before he left, and told me he was sure Evadne would hope to see a good
deal of me during his absence, and he wished I would look after
her--professionally, I inferred, and of course I was always prepared to do
so. But, so far, she had not required my services, happily, and for the
rest--well, my time was fully occupied, and I found it did not suit me to
go to As-You-Like-It. When I noticed the change in her appearance,
however, I began to think I would look in some day, just to see how she
really was, but before I could carry out the half formed intention she
came to me. It was during my consulting hours, and I was sitting at my
writing table, seeing my patients in rotation, when her name was
announced. She sauntered in in her usual leisurely way, shook hands with
me, and then subsided into the easy-chair on my right, which was placed
facing the window for my patients to occupy.

"I have a cold," she said, "and a pain under my right clavicle, and the
posterior lobe of my brain--oh, dear, I have forgotten it all!" she broke
off, laughing. "How _shall_ I make you understand?"

"You are in excellent spirits," I observed, "if you are not in very good
health."

"No, believe me," she answered. "The pleasure of seeing you again
enlivened me for a moment; but I am really rather down."

I had been considering her attentively from a professional point of view
while she was speaking, and saw that this was true. The brightness which
animated her when she entered faded immediately, and then I saw that her
face was thin and pale and anxious in expression. Her eyes wandered
somewhat restlessly; her attitude betokened weakness. She had a little
worrying cough, and her pulse was unequal.

"What have you been doing with yourself lately?" I asked, turning to my
writing table and taking up a pen, when I had ascertained this last fact.

"Dreaming," she said.

The answer struck me. "Dreaming," I repeated to myself, and then aloud to
her, while I affected to write. "Dreaming?" I said. "What about, for
example?"

"Oh! the Arabian Nights, the whole thousand and one of them, would not be
long enough to tell you," she replied. "I think my dreams have lasted
longer already."

"Are you speaking of day-dreams?" I asked.

"Yes."

"You imagine things as you sit at work, perhaps!"

"Yes." She spoke languidly, and evidently attached no special significance
either to my questions or her own answers, which was what I wished. "Yes,
that is my best time. While I work, I live in a world of my own creating;
in a beautiful happy dream--at least it was so once," she added, with a
sigh.

"I have heard you say you did not care to read fiction. You prefer to make
your own stories, is that the reason?"

"I suppose so," she said; "but I never thought of it before."

"And you never write these imaginings?"

"Oh, no! That would be impossible. It is in the tones of voices as I hear
them; in the expression of faces as I see them; in the subtle,
indescribable perception of the significance of events, and their intimate
relation to each other and influence on the lives of my dream friends that
the whole charm lies. Such impressions are too delicate for reproduction,
even if I had the mind to try. Describing them would be as coarse a
proceeding as eating a flower after inhaling its perfume."

"Did I understand you to say that this is the habit of years? Has your
inner life been composed of dreams ever since you were a child?"

"No," she replied, "I don't think as a child I was at all imaginative. I
liked to learn, and when I was not learning I lived an active, outdoor
life."

"Ah! Then you have acquired the habit since you grew up?"

"Yes. It came on by degrees. I used to think of how things might be
different; that was the way it began. I tried to work out schemes of life
in my head, as I would do a game of chess; not schemes of life for myself,
you know, but such as should save other people from being very miserable.
I wanted to do some good in the world,"--she paused here to choose her
words--"and that kind of thought naturally resolves itself into action,
but before the impulse to act came upon me I had made it impossible for
myself to do anything, so that when it came I was obliged to resist it,
and then, instead of reading and reflecting, I took to sewing for a
sedative, and turned the trick of thinking how things might be different
into another channel."

She was unconsciously telling me the history of her married life, showing
me a lonely woman gradually losing her mental health for want of active
occupation and a wholesome share of the work of the world to take her out
of herself. To a certain extent, then, I had been right in my judgment of
her character. Her disposition was practical, not contemplative; but she
had been forced into the latter attitude, and the consequence was,
perhaps--well, it might be a diseased state of the mind; but that I had
yet to ascertain.

"And are you happy in your dreams?" I inquired.

"I was," she said; "but my dreams are not what they used to be."

"How?" I asked.

"At first they were pleasant," she answered. "When I sat alone at work, it
was my happiest time. I was master of my dreams then, and let none but
pleasant shapes present themselves. But by degrees--I don't know how--I
began to be intoxicated. My imagination ran away with me. Instead of
indulging in a daydream now and then, when I liked, all my life became
absorbed in delicious imaginings, whether I would or not. Working,
walking, driving; in church; anywhere and at any time, when I could be
alone a moment, I lived in my world apart. If people spoke to me, I awoke
and answered them; but real life was a dull thing to offer, and the
daylight very dim, compared with the movement and brightness of the land I
lived in--while I was master of my dreams."

"Then you did not remain master of them always?"

"No. By degrees they mastered me; and now I am their puppet, and they are
demons that torment me. When I awake in the morning, I wonder what the
haunting thought for the day will be; and before I have finished dressing
it is upon me as a rule. At first it was not incessant, but now the
trouble in my head is awful."

I thought so! But she had said enough for the present. The confession was
ingenuously made, and evidently without intention. I merely asked a few
more questions about her general health, and then sent her home to nurse
her cold, promising to call and see how it was the next day.

When I opened my case book to make a note of her visit and a brief summary
of the symptoms she had described and betrayed, I hesitated a moment about
the diagnosis, and finally decided to write provisionally for my guidance,
or rather by way of prognosis, the one word, "Hysteria!"

CHAPTER XIII.

Next day I found that Evadne's cold was decidedly worse, and as the
weather was severe I ordered her to stay in her own rooms.

"Am I going to be ill?" she asked.

"No," I answered, pooh-poohing the notion.

"Doctor, you dash my hopes!" she said. "I am always happy when I am ill.
It _is_ such a relief."

I had heard her use the phrase twice before, but it was only now that I
saw her meaning. Physical suffering was evidently a relief from the mental
misery, and this proved that the trouble was of longer standing than I had
at first suspected. She had used the same expression, I remembered, when I
first attended her, during that severe attack of pneumonia.

Colonel Colquhoun had returned, she told me, but I did not see him that
day, as he was out. Next morning, however, I came earlier on purpose, and
encountered him in the hall. He was not in uniform, I was thankful to see,
for he was very apt to assume his orderly room manners therewith, and they
were decidedly objectionable to the average civilian, whatever military
men might think of them.

"Ah, how do you do?" he said. "So you've been having honours thrust upon
you? Well, I congratulate you, I'm sure, sincerely, in so far as they are
a pleasure to you; but I condole with you from the bottom of my heart for
your loss. I'm afraid Mrs. Colquhoun is giving you more trouble. Now,
don't say the trouble's a pleasure, for I'll not believe a word of it,
with all you have to occupy you."

"It is no pleasure to see her ill," I answered. "How is she to-day?"

"On my word I can't tell you, because I haven't seen her. I haven't the
_entree_ to her private apartments. But come and see my new horse,"
he broke off--he was in an exceedingly good humour--"I got him in Ireland,
and I'm inclined to think him a beauty, but I'd like to have your opinion.
It's worth having."

The horse was like Colonel Colquhoun himself, showy; one of those high
steppers that put their feet down where they lift them up almost, and get
over no ground at all to speak of. Having occupied, without compunction,
in inspecting this animal, half an hour of the time he considered too
precious to be wasted on his wife, Colonel Colquhoun summoned Evadne's
maid to show me upstairs, and cheerfully went his way.

But that remark of his about the _entree_ to his wife's apartments
had made an impression. I was in duty bound to follow up any clue to the
cause of her present state of mind, and here was perhaps a morbid symptom.

"Why have you quarrelled with your husband?" I asked in my most
matter-of-course tone, as soon as I was seated, and had heard about her
cold.

"I have not quarrelled with my husband," she answered, evidently
surprised.

"Then what does he mean by saying that he hasn't the _entree_ to your
private apartments?"

"I am sure he made no complaint about that," she answered tranquilly.

This was true. He had merely mentioned the fact casually, and not as a
thing that affected his comfort or happiness in any way.

"Colonel Colquhoun and I are better friends now, if anything, than we have
ever been," she added of her own accord, with inquiry in her eyes, as if
she wanted to know what could have made me think otherwise.

I should have said myself that they were excellent friends, but what
precisely did "friends" mean? I scented something anomalous here. However,
it was not a point that I considered it advisable to pursue. I had
ascertained that there was no morbid feeling in the matter, and that was
all that I required to know. I only paid her a short visit that morning,
and did not return for two days; but I had been thinking seriously about
her case in the interval, and carefully prepared to inquire into it
particularly; and an evident increase of languor and depression gave me a
good opening.

"Tell me how you are to-day," I began. "Any trouble?"

"The worry in my head is awful!" she exclaimed. "Let me go downstairs. I
am better there."

She was essentially a child of light and air and movement, requiring
sunshine indoors as well as out to keep her in health. An Italian proverb
says where the sun does not come, the doctor does, and this had been only
too true in her case. It was pure animal instinct which had made the west
window of the drawing room her favourite place. Nature, animal and
vegetable, is under an imperative law to seek the sun, and she had
unconsciously obeyed it for her own good. But she required more than that
transient gleam in the western window; a sun bath daily, when it could be
had, is what I should have prescribed for her; and from her next remark I
judged that she had discovered for herself the harm which the deprivation
of light was doing her.

"I can see the sun all day long beyond the shadow of the house," she
continued, "but I want to feel it, too. I would like it to shine on me in
the early morning, and wake me up and warm me. There is no heat so
grateful; and I only feel half alive in these dark, damp rooms. I never
had bronchitis or was delicate at all in any way until we came here. Let
me go down, won't you?"

"Well, as your cold is so much better, you may go downstairs if you like.
But you mustn't go out," I answered. "How are you going to amuse
yourself?"

"Oh!"--she looked around the room as if in search of something--"I don't
know exactly. Work, I suppose."

"You don't read much?"

"No, not now," she answered, leaning forward with her hands clasped on her
lap, and looking dreamily into the fire.

"Does that mean that you used to read once?" I pursued, "You have plenty
of books here."

She looked toward the well-filled cases, "Yes," she said, "old friends, I
seldom open any of them now."

"Do you never feel that they reproach you for losing interest in them?"