CHAPTER XLII
JULIANA
The sick night-light burned steadily in Juliana's chamber. On a couch,
beside her bed, Caroline lay sleeping, tired with a long watch. Two
sentences had been passed on Juliana: one on her heart: one on her body:
'Thou art not loved'; and, 'Thou must die.' The frail passion of her
struggle against her destiny was over with her. Quiet as that quiet which
Nature was taking her to, her body reposed. Calm as the solitary
night-light before her open eyes, her spirit was wasting away. 'If I am
not loved, then let me die!' In such a sense she bowed to her fate.
At an hour like this, watching the round of light on the ceiling, with
its narrowing inner rings, a sufferer from whom pain has fled looks back
to the shores she is leaving, and would be well with them who walk there.
It is false to imagine that schemers and workers in the dark are
destitute of the saving gift of conscience. They have it, and it is
perhaps made livelier in them than with easy people; and therefore, they
are imperatively spurred to hoodwink it. Hence, their self-delusion is
deep and endures. They march to their object, and gaining or losing it,
the voice that calls to them is the voice of a blind creature, whom any
answer, provided that the answer is ready, will silence. And at an hour
like this, when finally they snatch their minute of sight on the
threshold of black night, their souls may compare with yonder shining
circle on the ceiling, which, as the light below gasps for air,
contracts, and extends but to mingle with the darkness. They would be
nobler, better, boundlessly good to all;--to those who have injured them
to those whom they have injured. Alas! for any definite deed the limit of
their circle is immoveable, and they must act within it. The trick they
have played themselves imprisons them. Beyond it, they cease to be.
Lying in this utter stillness, Juliana thought of Rose; of her beloved by
Evan. The fever that had left her blood, had left it stagnant, and her
thoughts were quite emotionless. She looked faintly on a far picture. She
saw Rose blooming with pleasures in Elburne House, sliding as a boat
borne by the river's tide to sea, away from her living joy. The breast of
Rose was lucid to her, and in that hour of insight she had clear
knowledge of her cousin's heart; how it scoffed at its base love, and
unwittingly betrayed the power on her still, by clinging to the world and
what it would give her to fill the void; how externally the lake was
untroubled, and a mirror to the passing day; and how within there pressed
a flood against an iron dam. Evan, too, she saw. The Countess was right
in her judgement of Juliana's love. Juliana looked very little to his
qualities. She loved him when she thought him guilty, which made her
conceive that her love was of a diviner cast than Rose was capable of.
Guilt did not spoil his beauty to her; his gentleness and glowing manhood
were unchanged; and when she knew him as he was, the revelation of his
high nature simply confirmed her impression of his physical perfections.
She had done him a wrong; at her death news would come to him, and it
might be that he would bless her name. Because she sighed no longer for
those dear lips and strong arms to close about her tremulous frame, it
seemed to her that she had quite surrendered him. Generous to Evan, she
would be just to Rose. Beneath her pillow she found pencil and paper, and
with difficulty, scarce seeing her letters in the brown light, she began
to trace lines of farewell to Rose. Her conscience dictated to her thus,
'Tell Rose that she was too ready to accept his guilt; and that in this
as in all things, she acted with the precipitation of her character. Tell
her that you always trusted, and that now you know him innocent. Give her
the proofs you have. Show that he did it to shield his intriguing sister.
Tell her that you write this only to make her just to him. End with a
prayer that Rose may be happy.'
Ere Juliana had finished one sentence, she resigned the pencil. Was it
not much, even at the gates of death, to be the instrument to send Rose
into his arms? The picture swayed before her, helping her weakness. She
found herself dreaming that he had kissed her once. Dorothy, she
remembered, had danced up to her one day, to relate what the maids of the
house said of the gentleman--(at whom, it is known, they look with the
licence of cats toward kings); and Dorothy's fresh careless mouth had
told how one observant maid, amorously minded, proclaimed of Evan, to a
companion of her sex, that, 'he was the only gentleman who gave you an
idea of how he would look when he was kissing you.' Juliana cherished
that vision likewise. Young ladies are not supposed to do so, if menial
maids are; but Juliana did cherish it, and it possessed her fancy. Bear
in your recollection that she was not a healthy person. Diseased little
heroines may be made attractive, and are now popular; but strip off the
cleverly woven robe which is fashioned to cover them, and you will find
them in certain matters bearing a resemblance to menial maids.
While the thoughts of his kiss lasted, she could do nothing; but lay with
her two hands out on the bed, and her eyelids closed. Then waking, she
took the pencil again. It would not move: her bloodless fingers fell from
it.
'If they do not meet, and he never marries, I may claim him in the next
world,' she mused.
But conscience continued uneasy. She turned her wrist and trailed a
letter from beneath the pillow. It was from Mrs. Shorne. Juliana knew the
contents. She raised it unopened as high as her faltering hands
permitted, and read like one whose shut eyes read syllables of fire on
the darkness.
'Rose has at last definitely engaged herself to Ferdinand, you will be
glad to hear, and we may now treat her as a woman.'
Having absorbed these words, Juliana's hand found strength to write, with
little difficulty, what she had to say to Rose. She conceived it to be
neither sublime nor generous: not even good; merely her peculiar duty.
When it was done, she gave a long, low sigh of relief.
Caroline whispered, 'Dearest child, are you awake?'
'Yes,' she answered.
'Sorrowful, dear?'
'Very quiet.'
Caroline reached her hand over to her, and felt the paper. 'What is
this?'
'My good-bye to Rose. I want it folded now.'
Caroline slipped from the couch to fulfil her wish. She enclosed the
pencilled scrap of paper, sealed it, and asked, 'Is that right?'
'Now unlock my desk,' Juliana uttered, feebly. 'Put it beside a letter
addressed to a law-gentleman. Post both the morning I am gone.'
Caroline promised to obey, and coming to Juliana to mark her looks,
observed a faint pleased smile dying away, and had her hand gently
squeezed. Juliana's conscience had preceded her contentedly to its last
sleep; and she, beneath that round of light on the ceiling, drew on her
counted breaths in peace till dawn.