Martyrs of Science Page 6

  To complete the misfortune, the roads have become bad; the horses’ feet slip, the wheels sink into profound ruts. Night will have fallen by the time the berline reaches Edinburgh.

  Night? No, it will be tomorrow, for now it’s the axle that has broken; the carriage is lying on its side in a ditch...

  Thank God no one is injured! A great fright for the ladies; for everyone, a rainy night spent under the stars: those are the only inconveniences of the accident that has just occurred. It’s necessary, however to seek shelter. In which direction? They are five miles from any habitation, and how are they to reach one, with frail footwear, along muddy roads, in rain like this?

  Luckily, a short distance away, there is an old ruined manor house, whose owners, if there are any, have not been in residence there in living memory; today, the only living beings to be found there are an old Scots woman and her daughter; they have come to set up home in the ruins, rather like swallows taking possession of the corner of a window to build their nests.

  After holding a discussion, they decided unanimously to go seek a refuge in the old manor while one of the domestics would keep watch on the carriage and the other would go on horseback in search of laborers.

  The hospitality was not as poor as might have been feared; the good woman in the manor received the strangers as best she could; dealing, as she could easily see, with people of high status, who would reward her zeal generously, she displayed the utmost reverence, and put her abode and the manor at the disposal of her guests.

  To begin with, the ladies exchanged their sodden clothes for the Sunday garments of the old woman’s daughter, Betty. The travelers’ cheerfulness was briefly reanimated: that was when they saw the two young ladies dressed in scarlet skirts, whose Scottish cut allowed the sight of their legs clad in blue stockings and shoes with big buckles; for headgear they had muslin bonnets, which fell over their shoulders and were certainly not unfavorable to their charming features.

  The entire evening was spent around a large fireplace where a peat fire was burning. Insensibly, the conversation became sad and lugubrious, and they began to tell terrifying ghost stories.

  It was the old doctor who, seeing his audience marvelously disposed to feel the somber impressions of that kind of story, amused himself greatly in following the progress of the vague and insurmountable terror that gradually took possession of the ladies during the narrations, and even attained the gentleman, Edgard.

  It must be said that the irritations of the journey, the memories of the cottage and Saint Ruth, the howling wind, the deceptive light of the fire and the walls charged with Gothic sculptures could not have seconded the doctor any better; never had he had such a satisfactory audience.

  The hoarseness of his voice, and Lady Tornson eyes, which were beginning to close, indicated that if he wanted to keep such a great success intact, it was time to bring it to an end, so, taking out his watch, he announced that midnight had chimed some time ago.

  The ladies then took possession of the only lamp that their hostess had in the house, and the doctor and Sir Edgard went their separate ways to lie down on pallets of straw set down in the only two rooms in the manor into which the rain did not penetrate through the dilapidated roof.

  Hazard had placed Edgard in the remotest part of the building; his tender imagination, inclined to excitement, had experienced the effect of the doctor’s tales keenly. Then again, after having groped his way through a long, narrow corridor, he was alone, far away from everyone else, in the large deserted hall of a ruined building; he could not, therefore, prevent himself feeling a kind of mysterious dread.

  While recognizing the absurdity of such a sensation, he was nonetheless subject to its effects; wrapped up in is cloak and lying in a corner, in the midst of a profound obscurity, he felt his heart beating forcefully. The only glimmer of light he perceived was that which the moon sometimes projected through the large clouds, which the wind as driving rapidly; the only noises that reached his ears were the hooting of an owl and the roaring of the wind.

  He was nevertheless dozing off when the badly-closed door flew open with a bang. He woke up with a start: the moon half-lit the place where he was...

  Great God! A white phantom was standing over him!

  He tried to cry out, but his voice failed; he tried to fell, but a powerful, inexorable hand held on to his garments...

  He fell unconscious.

  The next morning, at daybreak, the domestics brought the berline to the old manor house, restored as best they could to a condition in which it could reach Edinburgh. At that good news, everyone assembled—but Edgard was missing.

  “He’s asleep, the idler. Come on, we need to go and wake him up.”

  They found him pale and motionless, with the pocket of his jacket caught on the foot of an old stone statue. His hair had turned white.

  They had a great deal of difficulty bringing him round. As for his reason, he was never able to recover it.

  ALICE

  And the evils that endure, and the evils one suspects,

  And those that I have sung, will not prevent anyone

  From loving as they loved before.

  (Émile Deschamps, “Conclusion”)5

  Alice was the daughter of a poor country minister. She was eight years old when her mother died; at twelve she was an orphan.

  The only relative that remained to her in the world, Miss Abigail Lawton, a retired seamstress in the city, took Alice into her home, making a great issue of the extreme charity she was displaying in not putting her brother’s only child in the orphanage.

  No benefit was ever more dearly bought, for little Alice had to satisfy the demands of a shrewish, eccentric, exacting old woman, and the angelic resignation, loving character, gentility and precocious intelligence of the poor girl could not find any mercy from Miss Abigail.

  Alice worked from dawn to dusk, and if, stealing a few moments’ relief, she took refuge in her little room to read a page or two of an old edition of Pamela,6 the sole legacy that she had inherited from her father, Miss Abigail immediately came to throw her out again, protesting against the “lady-like airs” that her niece was putting on.

  “Isn’t this,” she said, in the harshest voice that had ever been heard to screech in the city, “a fine occupation for a girl who doesn’t have a farthing? Learn to earn your daily bread with your arms, for I won’t live forever, and when I’m gone you’ll soon have dissipated the savings that I’ve had so much trouble amassing. Who’ll feed you then?”

  At these unjust reproaches and gross outrages, Alice shed many bitter tears, which it as necessary for her to strive to conceal, for they would have occasioned a further diatribe. Without saying a word, she went back to work.

  Constrained to the most servile tasks, to the most repulsive work, Alice never let slip a murmur, but not because Miss Abigail’s persecutions had produced in her the kind of indifference that might have rendered such an existence tolerable; the extreme pallor of her physiognomy and her habitual sadness revealed how profoundly she felt the misfortune of her situation.

  Two years had gone by when an old naval officer came to lodge in Miss Abigail’s house. Touched by Alice’s sad situation, the old man became her friend, and thanks to the protection of Sir John Clapperstuck, the orphan’s fate became a little more tolerable.

  The former long-haul captain was a learned man; he took great pleasure in cultivating Alice’s fortunate dispositions; his pupil’s rapid progress filled him with joy. Miss Abigail often shook her head, murmuring, on seeing her niece wasting her time, as she put it, with the old mariner, but she dared not complain too loudly, because the captain had sworn that, if his pretty protégée were harassed, he would immediately leave Miss Abigail’s house and take lodgings at the other end of the street with Miss Southey.

  Now, Miss Southey was the owner of a well-stocked lingerie shop, and had established a redoubtable competition with Miss Abigail. There was no sacrifice that the latter would not have
made rather than lose a guest like the captain—a guest who was sometimes visited by lords. If she had ever seen their carriages stopping outside Miss Southey’s boutique, she would have fallen ill with chagrin. Alice, therefore, spent all her recreational time with Sir John.

  Glad to receive testimony of affection that reminded her of the days when she had had a father, Alice loved the old man with all the abandon of her age, and surrounded him with the most tender cares and most delicate kindness. The captain often said, with tears in his eyes, that the child would fill his final years with happiness.

  Alice was eighteen when the venerable old man yielded his last sigh peacefully, in her arms.

  For her, everything then became sad, bitter and empty again. Miss Abigail had counted on the old man making her his heir, but he did not bequeath anything to her or to Alice but trivia of little value. That disappointment returned all its original bitterness to the old woman’s character—a bitterness further augmented by the chagrin of seeing the captain’s room remain unoccupied for a long time.

  Finally, a young man from Exeter presented himself as a tenant for the late Sir John’s apartment. Teddy Wolsey did not take long to get into his landlady’s good graces; he was a young medical student, jovial, tidy and studious, and extremely polite to Miss Abigail. He soon acquired a considerable intimacy within the household; nothing was done without asking his advice, and if the old woman had a fit of ill-temper, Teddy’s cheerful remarks were able to dissipate it and restore calm and gaiety.

  Gradually, a pleasant intimacy was established between Alice and Teddy; the young woman yielded to the vague and indecisive sentiment that she was beginning to feel, without seeking to examine it closely. She knew that the affection she had for Teddy was not the same as that the captain had once inspired in her, but because the mixture of sweet languor and melancholy pleasure gradually took possession of hr entire being did not give rise to any alarm, she was already in love with the young man before she had given any thought to explaining the nature of her new sensations.

  Imagine her terror when, one evening, she saw Teddy come home covered in blood, with a wound on his head! Oh, what a horrible despair clutched her heart when the doctor who was summoned examined the wound for a long time, silently, and sadly shaking his head. Imagine her anxiety when, that night, sitting up with the invalid on her own, she interrogated the feeble palpitations of his heart, dreading that she might feel it stop!

  For eight days and nights they trembled for the life of the injured man, and for eight days and nights Alice kept vigil by his bedside; she scarcely closed her eyes for a few minutes from time to time in order to sleep, and her slumber was so light that, at the slightest moan, she would be standing over the invalid, offering refreshing beverages to his burning lips.

  Finally, they ceased to fear for his life, but it was necessary to surround him with long, attentive, persevering care. When the doctor announced that, Alice was distressed to earn that Teddy had a long time still to suffer, but was gladdened by the thought that she would be close to him for a long time yet.

  With what a mixture of modesty and tenderness she rendered him the kind and gentle cares that only women are able to offer so affectionately! He never had time to formulate a desire; she was already offering whatever he was about to request; she interpreted his vaguest gaze reliably.

  One evening, she had helped him to sit in an armchair, and, as her hand placed the pillow that was to sustain the convalescent’s head, Teddy took that hand in his stiff fingers and raised it to his lips. A fiery redness, and then a sudden pallor, covered the poor young woman’s cheeks in turn, and she had to lean on the back of the chair, having become unsteady on her feet.

  Teddy put his arm around Alice’s elegant waist; he tried to speak, but, too emotional, could scarcely proffer an exclamation. They both kept a long silence, and that silence was delicious, for Alice’s pretty head rested on Teddy’s shoulder; their hands were entwined, and the young woman’s tears fell one by one on to the convalescent’s knees.

  Then their lips met, and they swore to love one another forever.

  Afterwards, they set about making long and pleasant plans for the future, and confiding to one another the most secret thoughts of their souls. Alice told Teddy about the chagrins she had suffered since her mother’s death; then, her eyes bathed in tears, with a celestial smile, she said: “I shall be very happy now.”

  He drew her gently to his bosom. “My Alice! My Alice! We shall soon belong to one another. When my mother knows that she owes her only son’s existence to the tender care of my Alice, she’ll leave Devonshire and come to call you her daughter.”

  The three months of the convalescence went by so quickly for the two lovers that they were struck motionless by surprises when the doctor said to Teddy: “Nothing more is needed now to render the cure perfect than to go and breathe the air of your natal county. You can support the fatigue of the journey; I’ve written to tell your mother the good news, and this is her response—she wants you to leave the day after tomorrow.”

  He left.

  Unfortunate children! Large tears formed in their eyes, and they threw themselves into one another’s arms, sobbing. “Oh no!” Teddy exclaimed. “I don’t want to leave you!”

  “What about your mother?” poor Alice murmured, affecting a firmness that was far from real. “How disappointed she would be.”

  He left, and only four days had gone by when a letter from Teddy arrived to console Alice and render the isolation in which her friend’s departure had left her less frightful.

  Tomorrow, he wrote, he was going to confide his love and the promise he had made to marry Alice to his mother.

  Two days later, another letter arrived, and Alice opened it with a hand agitated by hope and anxiety. Misfortune! Teddy’s mother had forbidden him even to think about a marriage so disproportionate. “But,” he said, “I’ll keep my promise. I’m going to leave for London in secret; we’ll go to Gretna Green, and a marriage will be made there by the Scottish blacksmith, without which I’d have nothing else to do but die.”

  On reading that letter, Alice shed bitter tears, but she did not hesitate for an instant.

  “My Teddy, I have only you in the entire world to love poor Alice, and Heaven is my witness as to how dear you are to me, but I would rather lose your tenderness than buy the name of your spouse at the price of the remorse that such a disobedience would cost you. Let us defer, my Teddy, a marriage that could not be happy, since it would be a bad deed; and let us hope for the future.”

  Such was Alice’s reply.

  And she was well-rewarded for so great a sacrifice, for every week she received letters from Teddy expressing the greatest tenderness; as she read them she thanked heaven for having blessed her because she had listened to the voice of duty.

  Alas, Teddy’s letters soon became less frequent and less tender. Then they stopped altogether.

  Six months went by.

  It was evening. Sitting in his study, beside a large fire, Teddy was formulating dreams of marriage and happiness; but the image of Alice was not, alas, associated with those future projects. A young miss with blue eyes, a dowry of a thousand pounds sterling and, perhaps even more than that, the numerous and lucrative clientele of his fiancée’s father, the celebrated surgeon Olbarn—such were the ideas caressing Teddy’s imagination. In becoming Miss Olbarn’s husband, he would clear at a single stride all the discouraging hindrances that a young debutant in the healing art must overcome; protected by his father-in-law’s name, associated with his work, he would effortlessly acquire a reputation and the abundant advantages that would flow from the acquaintances that he would make in London.

  A sudden groan made him tremble; he raised his head. A woman, Alice, was standing before him, pale and hardly able to stand.

  At the sight of the unfortunate woman, alas, one sole dread agitated the ingrate Teddy’s heart: the dread that Alice’s unexpected arrival in Exeter might trouble his marriage to M
iss Olbarn.

  And when, making an effort, she advanced toward him, and her lips, contracted by a convulsive movement, tried to pronounce a few words, he said to her, harshly: “What are you doing here?”

  A cold sweat was streaming over the unfortunate woman’s brow. She uttered an inarticulate groan. Despair had annihilated all the faculties of her being.

  Teddy went outside, precipitately, for a few moments. The night was dark and the street was deserted. He went back in, took Alice by the hand, and led her away silently. She did not offer any resistance, but numbly allowed him to take her wherever he wished. They walked for a long time, and when they had arrived at the road that led to London he put a purse full of money in Alice’s hand and abruptly fled.

  There’s an inn a short distance away, he said to himself. She can spend the night there, and go back to London tomorrow. It’s a violent remedy, but what else can I do, in the circumstances?

  Soon, the agitation caused to Teddy by Alice’s unexpected arrival gave way to a profound depression, the common result of an extreme determination. Alice’s presence, the cruel manner in which he had treated the unfortunate woman, now appeared to him as a bizarre and deceptive dream; he would not have believed it, if the remorse of his sin had not weighed heavily upon his heart.

  He made the greatest efforts, in vain, to snatch himself away from the ideas that were stabbing him; he gathered all the faculties of his soul, in vain, to concentrate, as before, on his dreams of ambition. Alice alone, always Alice, remained in the forefront of his thoughts. A burning fever circulated in Teddy’s veins; a circle of fire gripped his head...

  He got up, and repose became an intolerable fatigue to him; he walked, and his limbs, worn out by an unaccountable lassitude, obliged him to fall back into the armchair that he had just quit. He tried to read, and forced his eyes to scan the pages, but it was without the characters translating themselves in his imagination; and his hands turned the pages mechanically, without any other idea replacing the one that was obsessing him: Alice, Alice.