The Heavenly Twins by Madame Sarah Grand

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Mrs. Orton Beg had sat idle an hour looking out of the window, her mind in
the mood for music, but bare of thought.

A gale was blowing without. The old elms in the Close were tossing their
stiff, bare arms about, the ground was strewed with branches and leaves
from the limes, and a watery wintry sun made the misery of the muddy
ground apparent, and accentuated the blight of the flowers and torn
untidiness of the creepers, and all the items which make autumn gardens so
desolate. The equinoctial gales had set in early that year. They began on
Evadne's wedding day with a fearful storm which raged all over the
country, and burst with especial violence upon Morningquest, and the wind
continued high, and showed no sign of abating. It was depressing weather,
and Mrs. Orton Beg sighed more than once unconsciously.

But presently the cathedral clock began to strike, and she raised her head
to listen. One, two, three, four, the round notes fell; then there was a
pause; and then the chime rolled out over the storm-stained city:

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

Mechanically Mrs. Orton Beg repeated the phrase with each note as it
floated forth, filling the silent spaces; and then she awoke with a start
to thought once more, and knew that she had been a long, long time alone.

She was going to ring, but at that moment a servant entered and announced:
"Mrs. and Miss Beale."

They were the wife and daughter of the Bishop of Morningquest, the one a
very pleasant, attractive elderly lady, the other a girl of seventeen,
like her mother, but with more character in her face.

"Ah, how glad I am to see you!" Mrs. Orton Beg exclaimed, trying to rise,
"and what a delicious breath of fresh air you have brought in with you!"

"My dear Olive, don't move," Mrs. Beale rejoined, preventing her. "We have
been nearly blown away walking this short distance. Just look at Edith's
hair."

"I feel quite tempest tossed," said Edith, getting up and going to a glass
before which she removed her hat, and let down her hair, which was the
colour of burnished brass, and fell to her knees in one straight heavy
coil without a wave.

"You remind me of some Saxon Edith I have seen in a picture," said Mrs.
Orton Beg, looking at her admiringly. "But, dear child," her mother
deprecated, "should you make a dressing room of the drawing room?"

"I know Mrs. Orton Beg will pardon me," said Edith, rolling her hair up
deftly and neatly as she spoke, with the air of a privileged person quite
at home.

Mrs. Orton Beg smiled at her affectionately; but before she could speak
the door opened once more, and the servant announced: "Lord Dawne."

And there entered a grave, distinguished looking man between thirty and
forty years of age, apparently, with black hair, and deep blue eyes at
once penetrating and winning in expression.

Mrs. Orton Beg greeted him with pleasure, Mrs. Beale with pleasure also,
but with more ceremony, Edith quite simply and naturally, and then he sat
down. He was in riding dress, with his whip and hat in his hand.

"This is an unexpected pleasure. I did not know you were at Morne," said
Mrs. Orton Beg. "Is Claudia with you?"

"No, I have only come for a few days," Lord Dawne replied, "I came to see
Adeline specially, but they don't return from town till to-morrow. They
have all been assisting at the marriage of a niece of yours, I hear, and
the Heavenly Twins have been prolonging the festivities on their own
account. Adeline wrote to me in despair, and I have come to see if I can
be of any use. My sister," he added, turning to Mrs. Beale with his
bright, almost boyish smile, which was like his nephew Diavolo's, and made
them both irresistible--"my sister flatters herself that I have some
influence with the children, and as it is quite certain that nobody else
has, I am careful not to dispel the illusion. It is a comfort to her. But
the twins will not allow me to deceive myself upon that head. They put me
in my place every time I see them. The last time we had a serious talk
together I noticed that Diavolo was thinking deeply, and hoped for a
moment that it was about what I was saying; but that, apparently, had not
interested him at all, for I had the curiosity to ask, just to see if I
had, perchance, made any impression, and discovered that he had had
something else in his mind the whole time. 'I was just wondering,' he
answered, 'if you care much about being Duke of Morningquest.' 'No, not
very much,' I assured him; 'why?' 'Well, I was pretty certain you didn't,'
he replied; 'and, you see, _I_ do; so I was just thinking couldn't
you remain as you are when grandpapa dies, and let me walk into the title?
Then I'd give Angelica the Hamilton House property, and it would be very
jolly for all of us.' 'But, look here,' Angelica broke in, in her
energetic way, 'if you're going to be a duke I won't be left plain Miss
Hamilton-Wells.' 'You couldn't be "plain" Miss anything,' Diavolo
gallantly assured her, bowing in the most courtly way. But Angelica said,
with more force than refinement, that that was all rot, and then Diavolo
lost his temper and pulled her hair, and she got hold of his and dragged
him out of the room by his--my presence of course counted for nothing. And
the next I saw of them they were on their ponies in a secluded grassy
glade of the forest, tilting at each other with long poles for the
dukedom. Angelica says she means to beat Demosthenes hollow--I use her own
phraseology to give character to the quotation; that delivering orations
with a natural inclination, to stammering was nothing to get over compared
to the disabilities which being a girl imposes upon her; but she means to
get over them all by hook, which she explains as being the proper
development of her muscles and physique generally, and by crook, which she
defines as circumventing the slave drivers of her sex, a task which she
seems to think can easily be accomplished by finessing."

"And what was the last thing?" Mrs. Orton Beg inquired, smiling
indulgently.

"Oh, that was very simple," Lord Dawne rejoined. "Diavolo, dressed in
velvet, was caught and taken up by a policeman for recklessly driving a
hansom in Oxford Street, Angelica being inside the same disguised in
something of her mother's."

"I wonder it was Angelica who went inside!" Mrs. Orton Beg exclaimed.

"Well, that was what her mother said," Lord Dawne replied; "and both her
parents seem to think the matter was not nearly so bad as it might have
been in consequence. Mr. Hamilton-Wells had to pay a fine for the furious
driving, and use all his influence with the Press to keep the thing out of
the papers."

"But where did the children get the hansom?" Mrs. Beale begged to be
informed.

"I regret to say that they hailed it through the dining room window, and
plied the driver with raw brandy until his venal nature gave in to their
earnestly persuasive eloquence and the contents of their purses, and he
consented to let Diavolo 'just try what it was like to sit up on that high
box,' Angelica having previously got inside, and, of course, the moment
the young scamp had the reins in his hands he drove off full tilt."

"Oh, dear, _poor_ Lady Adeline!" Mrs. Beale exclaimed.

Lord Dawne smiled again, and changed the subject. "Did you feel the storm
much here?" he asked. "My trees have suffered a great deal, I am sorry to
say."

"Ah, that reminds me," Mrs. Beale began. "A very strange and solemn thing
happened on the day of the storm; have you heard of it, Olive?"

"No," Mrs. Orton Beg answered with interest. "What was it?"

"Well, you know the dean's brother has a large family of daughters," Mrs.
Beale replied, "and they had a very charming governess, Miss Winstanley, a
lady by birth, and an accomplished person, and extremely
_spirituelle_. Well, on the morning of the storm she was sitting at
work with one of her pupils in the schoolroom, when another came in from
the garden, and uttered an exclamation of surprise when she saw Miss
Winstanley, 'How did you get in, and take your things off so quickly?' she
said. 'I have not been out,' Miss Winstanley answered. 'Why, I saw you--I
ran past you over by the duck pond!' 'Dear child, you must be mistaken. I
haven't been out to-day,' the governess answered, smiling. Well, that
child got out her work and sat down, but she had hardly done so when
another came in, and also exclaimed: 'Oh, Miss Winstanley! How _did_
you get here? I saw you standing looking out of the window at the bottom
of the picture gallery as I ran past this minute.' 'I must have a double,'
said Miss Winstanley lightly. 'But it _was_ you,' the child insisted;
'I saw you quite well, flowers and all.' The governess was wearing some
scarlet geranium. 'You know what they say if people are seen like that
where they have never been in the body?' she said jokingly. 'They say it
is a sign that that person is going to die.' In the afternoon," Mrs. Beale
continued, lowering her voice and glancing round involuntarily--and in the
momentary pause the rush of the gale without sounded obtrusively--"in the
afternoon of that same day she went out alone for a walk, and did not
return, and they became alarmed at last, and sent some men to search for
her when the storm was at its height, and they found her lying across a
stile. She had been killed by the branch of a tree falling on her."

"How do you explain that?" Mrs. Orton Beg said softly to Lord Dawne.

"I should not attempt to explain it," he answered, rising.

"Must you go?"

"Yes, I am sorry to say. Claudia and Ideala charged me with many messages
for you."

"They are together as usual, and well, I trust?"

"Yes," he answered, "and most anxious to hear a better account of your
foot."

"Ah, I hope to be able to walk soon," she said, holding out her hand to
him.

"What a charming man he is," Mrs. Beale remarked when he had gone. "There
is no hope of his marrying, I suppose," she added, trying not to look at
her daughter.

"Oh, no!" Mrs. Orton Beg exclaimed in an almost horrified tone.

Lord Dawne's friends made no secret of his grand and chivalrous devotion
to the distinguished woman known to them all as Ideala. Every one of them
was aware, although he had never let fall a word on the subject, that he
had remained single on her account--every one but Ideala herself. She
never suspected it, or thought of love at all in connection with Lord
Dawne--and, besides, she was married.

When her friends had gone that day Mrs. Orton Beg sat long in the
gathering dusk, watching the newly lighted fire burn up, and thinking. She
was thinking of Evadne chiefly, wondering why she had had no news of her,
why her sister Elizabeth did not write, and tell her all about the wedding;
and she was just on the verge of anxiety--in that state when various
possibilities of trouble that might have occurred to account for delays
begin to present themselves to the mind, when all at once, without hearing
anything, she became conscious of a presence near her, and looking up she
was startled to see Evadne herself.

"My dear child!" she gasped, "what has happened? Why are you here?"

"Nothing has happened, auntie; don't be alarmed," Evadne answered. "I am
here because I have been a fool."

She spoke quietly but with concentrated bitterness, then sat down and
began to take off her gloves with that exaggerated show of composure which
is a sign in some people of suppressed emotion.

Her face was pale, but her eyes were bright, and the pupils were dilated.

"I have come to claim your hospitality, auntie," she pursued, "to ask you
for shelter from the world for a few days, _because_ I have been a
fool. May I stay?"

"Surely, dear child," Mrs. Orton Beg replied, and then she waited,
mastering the nervous tremor into which the shock of Evadne's sudden
appearance had thrown her with admirable self-control. And here again the
family likeness between aunt and niece was curiously apparent. Both masked
their agitation because both by temperament were shy, and ashamed to show
strong feeling.

Evadne looked into the fire for a little, trying to collect herself. "I
knew what was right," she began at last in a low voice, "I knew we should
take nothing for granted, we should never be content merely to feel and
suppose and hope for the best in matters about which we should know
exactly. And yet I took no trouble to ascertain. I fell in love, and liked
the sensation, and gave myself up to it unreservedly. Certainly, I was a
fool--there is no other word for it."

"But are you married, Evadne?" Mrs. Orton Beg asked in a voice rendered
unnatural by the rapid beating of her heart.

"Let me tell you, auntie, all about it," Evadne answered hoarsely. She
drew her chair a little closer to the fire, and spread her hands out to
the blaze. There was no other light in the room by this time. The wind
without howled dismally still, but at intervals, as if with an effort.
During one of its noisiest bursts the cathedral clock began to strike, and
hushed it, as it were, suddenly. It seemed to be listening, to be waiting,
and Evadne waited and listened too, raising her head. There was a
perceptible, momentary pause, then came the chime, full, round, mournful,
melodious, yet glad too, in the strength of its solemn assurance, filling
the desolate regions of sorrow and silence with something of hope whereon
the weary mind might repose:

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

When the last reverberation of the last note had melted out of hearing,
Evadne sighed; then she straightened herself, as if collecting her energy,
and began to speak.

"Yes, I am married," she said, "but when I went to change my dress after
the ceremony I found this letter. It was intended, you see, to reach me
some days before it did, but unfortunately it was addressed to Fraylingay,
and time was lost in forwarding it." She handed it to her aunt, who raised
her eyebrows when she saw the writing, as if she recognized it, hastily
drew the letter from its envelope, and held it so that the blaze fell upon
it while she read. Evadne knelt on the hearthrug, and stirred the fire,
making it burn up brightly.

Mrs. Orton Beg returned the letter to the envelope when she had read it.
"What did you do?" she said.

"I read it before I went downstairs, and at first I could not think what
to do, so we drove off together, but on the way to the station it suddenly
flashed upon me that the proper thing to do would be to go at once and
hear all that there was to tell, and fortunately Major Colquhoun gave me
an opportunity of getting away without any dispute. He went to see about
something, leaving me in the carriage, and I just got out, walked round
the station, took a hansom, and drove off to the General Post Office to
telegraph to my people."

"But why didn't you go home?"

"For several reasons," Evadne answered, "the best being that I never
thought of going home. I wanted to be alone and think. I fancied that at
home they either could not or would not tell me anything of Major
Colquhoun's past life, and I was determined to know the truth exactly. And
I can't tell you how many sayings of my father's recurred to me all at
once with a new significance, and made me fear that there was some
difference between his point of view and mine on the subject of a suitable
husband. He told me himself that Major Colquhoun had been quite frank
about his past career, and then, when I came to think, it appeared to me
clearly that it was the frankness which had satisfied my father; the
career itself was nothing. You heard how pleased they were about my
engagement?"

"Yes," Mrs. Orton Beg answered slowly, "and I confess I was a little
surprised when I heard from your mother that your _fiance_ had been
'wild' in his youth, for I remembered some remarks you made last year
about the kind of man you would object to marry, and it seemed to me from
the description that Major Colquhoun was very much that kind of man."

"Then why didn't you warn me?" Evadne exclaimed.

"I don't know whether I quite thought it was a subject for warning," Mrs.
Orton Beg answered, "and at any rate, girls _do_ talk in that way
sometimes, not really meaning it. I thought it was mere _youngness_
on our part, and theory; and I don't know now whether I quite approve of
your having been told--of this new departure, she added, indicating the
letter.

"_I_ do," said Evadne decidedly. "I would stop the imposition,
approved of custom, connived at by parents, made possible by the state of
ignorance in which we are carefully kept--the imposition upon a girl's
innocence and inexperience of a disreputable man for a husband."

Mrs. Orton Beg was startled by this bold assertion, which was so
unprecedented in her experience that for a moment she could not utter a
word; and when she did speak she avoided a direct reply, because she
thought any discussion on the subject of marriage, except from the
sentimental point of view, was indelicate.

"But tell me your position exactly," she begged--"what you did next: why
you are here!"

"I went by the night mail North," Evadne answered, "and saw them. They
were very kind. They told me everything. I can't repeat the details; they
disgust me."

"No, pray don't!" Mrs. Orton Beg exclaimed hastily. She had no mind for
anything unsavoury.

"They had been abroad, you know," Evadne pursued; "Otherwise I should have
heard from them as soon as the engagement was announced. They hoped to be
in time, however. They had no idea the marriage would take place so soon."

Mrs. Orton Beg reflected for a little, and then she asked in evident
trepidation, for she had more than a suspicion of what the reply would be:
"Anc what are you going to do?"

"Decline to live with him," Evadne answered.

This was what Mrs. Orton Beg had begun to suspect, but there is often an
element of surprise in the confirmation of our shrewdest suspicions, and
now she sat upright, leant forward, and looked at her niece aghast.
"_What_?" she demanded.

"I shall decline to live with him," Evadne repeated with emphasis.

Mrs. Orton Beg slowly resumed her reclining position, acting as one does
who has heard the worst, and realizes that there is nothing to be done but
to recover from the shock.

"I thought you loved him," she ventured, after a prolonged pause.

"Yes, so did I," Evadne answered, frowning--"but I was mistaken. It was a
mere affair of the senses, to be put off by the first circumstance
calculated to cause a revulsion of feeling by lowering him in my
estimation--a thing so slight that, after reading the letter, as we drove
to the station--even so soon! I could see him as he is. I noticed at once--
but it was for the first time--I noticed that, although his face is
handsome, the expression of it is not noble at all." She shuddered as at
the sight of something repulsive. "You see," she explained, "my taste is
cultivated to so fine an extent, I require something extremely
well-flavoured for the dish which is to be the _piece de resistance_
of my life-feast. My appetite is delicate, it requires to be tempted, and
a husband of that kind, a moral leper"--she broke off with a gesture,
spreading her hands, palms outward, as if she would fain put some horrid
idea far from her. "Besides, marrying a man like that, allowing him an
assured position in society, is countenancing vice, and"--she glanced
round apprehensively, then added in a fearful whisper--"_helping to
spread it_."

Mrs. Orton Beg knew in her head that reason and right were on Evadne's
side, but she felt in her heart the full force of the custom and prejudice
that would be against her, and shrank appalled by the thought of what the
cruel struggle to come must be if Evadne persisted in her determination.
In view of this, she sat up in her chair once more energetically, prepared
to do her best to dissuade her; but then again she relapsed, giving in to
a doubt of her own capacity to advise in such an emergency, accompanied by
a sudden and involuntary feeling of respect for Evadne's principles,
however peculiar and unprecedented they might be, and for the strength of
character which had enabled her so far to act upon them. "You must obey
your own conscience, Evadne," was what she found herself saying at last.
"I will help you to do that. I would rather not influence you. You may be
right. I cannot be sure--and yet--I don't agree with you. For I know if I
could have my husband back with me, I would welcome him, even if he
were--a leper." Evadne compressed her lips in steady disapproval. "I
should think only of his future. I should forgive the past."

"That is the mistake you good women all make," said Evadne. "You set a
detestably bad example. So long as women like you will forgive anything,
men will do anything. You have it in your power to set up a high standard
of excellence for men to reach in order to have the privilege of
associating with you. There is this quality in men, that they will have
the best of everything; and if the best wives are only to be obtained by
being worthy of them, they will strive to become so. As it is, however,
why should they? Instead of punishing them for their depravity, you
encourage them in it by overlooking it; and besides," she added, "you must
know that there is no past in the matter of vice. The consequences become
hereditary, and continue from generation to generation."

Again Mrs. Orton Beg felt herself checked.

"Where did you hear all this, Evadne!" she asked,

"I never heard it. I read--and I thought," she answered. "But I am only
now beginning to understand," she added. "I suppose moral axioms are
always the outcome of pained reflection. Knowledge cries to us in vain as
a rule before experience has taken the sharp edge off our egotism--by
experience, I mean the addition of some personal feeling to our
knowledge."

"I don't understand you in the least, Evadne," Mrs. Orton Beg replied.

"Your husband was a good man," Evadne answered indirectly. "You have never
thought about what a woman ought to do who has married a bad one--in an
emergency like mine, that is. You think I should act as women have been
always advised to act in such cases, that I should sacrifice myself to
save that one man's soul. I take a different view of it. I see that the
world is not a bit the better for centuries of self-sacrifice on the
woman's part and therefore I think it is time we tried a more effectual
plan. And I propose now to sacrifice the man instead of the woman."

Mrs. Orton Beg was silent.

"Have you nothing to say to me, auntie?" Evadne asked at last,
caressingly.

"I do not like to hear you talk so, Evadne. Every word you say seems to
banish something--something from this room--something from my life to
which I cling. I think it is my faith in love--and loving. You may be
right, but yet--the consequences! the struggle, if we must resist! It is
best to submit. It is better not to know."

"It is easier to submit--yes; it is disagreeable to know," Evadne
translated.

There was another pause, then Mrs. Orton Beg broke out: "Don't make me
think about it. Surely I have suffered enough? Disagreeable to know! It is
torture. If I ever let myself dwell on the horrible depravity that goes on
unchecked, the depravity which you say we women license by ignoring it
when we should face and unmask it, I should go out of my mind. I do
know--we all know; how can we live and not know? But we don't think about
it--we can't--we daren't. See! I try always to keep my own mind in one
attitude, to keep it filled for ever with holy and beautiful thoughts.
When I am alone, I listen for the chime, and when I have repeated it to
myself slowly--

He, watching over Israel, slumbers not nor sleeps--

my heart swells. I leave all that is inexplicable to Him, and thank him
for the love and the hope with which he feeds my heart and keeps it from
hardening. I thank him too," she went on hoarsely, "for the terrible
moments when I feel my loss afresh, those early morning moments, when the
bright sunshine and the beauty of all things only make my own barren life
look all the more bare in its loneliness; when my soul struggles to free
itself from the shackles of the flesh that it may spread its wings to meet
that other soul which made earth heaven for me here, and will, I know,
make all eternity ecstatic as a dream for me hereafter. It is good to
suffer, yes; but surely I suffer enough? My husband--if I cry to him, he
will not hear me; if I go down on my knees beside his grave, and dig my
arms in deep, deep, I shall not reach him. I cannot raise him up again to
caress him, or move the cruel weight of earth from off his breast. The
voice that was always kind will gladden me no more; the arms that were so
willing to protect--the world--just think how big it is! and if I traverse
it every yard, I shall not find him. He is not anywhere in all this huge
expanse. Ah, God! the agony of yearning, the ache, the ache; why must I
live?"