Paul Patoff Part 18

"Not really? Oh, I am so glad! Now I can always talk to you about it.

Did papa tell you? Why did he want you to go?"

I briefly explained the circ.u.mstances of my seeing Madame Patoff in the Black Forest, and the hope that was entertained of her recognizing me.

"Do you ever go in to see her, Miss Carvel?" I asked.

"Sometimes. They do not like me to go," said she; "they think it is too depressing for me. I cannot tell why. Poor dear aunt! she used to be glad to see me. Is not it dreadfully sad? Can you imagine a man who has just seen his mother in such a condition, behaving as Paul Patoff behaves this evening? He talks as if nothing had happened."

"No, I cannot imagine it. I suppose he does not want to make everybody feel badly about it."

"Mr. Griggs, is she really mad?" asked Hermione, in a low voice, leaning forward and clasping her hands.

"Why," I began, very much surprised, "does anybody doubt that she is insane?"

"I do," said the young girl, decidedly. "I do not believe she is any more insane than you and I are."

"That is a very bold thing to say," I objected, "when a man of Professor Cutter's reputation in those things says that she is crazy, and gives up so much time to visiting her."

"All the same," said Hermione, "I do not believe it. I am sure people sometimes try to kill themselves without being insane, and that is all it rests on."

"But she has never recognized any one since that," I urged.

"Perhaps she is ashamed," suggested my companion, simply.

I was struck by the reply. It was such a simple idea that it seemed almost foolish. But it was a woman's thought about another woman, and it had its value. I laughed a little, but I answered seriously enough.

"Why should she be ashamed?"

"It seems to me," said the young girl, "that if I had done something very foolish and wicked, like trying to kill myself, and if people took it for granted that I was crazy, I would let them believe it, because I should be too much ashamed of myself to allow that I had consciously done anything so bad. Perhaps that is very silly; do you think so?"

"I do not think it is silly," I replied. "It is a very original idea."

"Well, I will tell you something. Soon after she was first brought here I used to go and see her more often than I do now. She interested me so much. I was often alone with her. She never answered any questions, but she would sometimes let me read aloud to her. I do not know whether she understood anything I read, but it soothed her, and occasionally she would go to sleep while I was reading. One day I was sitting quite quietly beside her, and she looked at me very sadly, as though she were thinking of somebody she had loved,--I cannot tell why; and without thinking I looked at her, and said, 'Dear aunt Annie, tell me, you are not really mad, are you?' Then she turned very pale and began to cry, so that I was frightened, and called the nurse, and went away. I never told anybody, because it seemed so foolish of me, and I thought I had been unkind, and had hurt her feelings. But after that she did not seem to want to see me when I came, and so I have thought a great deal about it.

Do you see? Perhaps there is not much connection."

"I think you ought to have told some one; your father, for instance," I said. "It is very interesting."

"I have told you, though it is so long since it happened," she answered; and then she added, quickly, "Shall you tell Professor Cutter?"

"No," I replied, after a moment's hesitation. "I do not think I shall.

Should you like me to tell him?"

"Oh, no," she exclaimed quickly, "I should much rather you would not."

"Why?" I inquired. "I agree with you, but I should like to know your reason."

"I think Professor Cutter knows more already than he will tell you or me"---- She checked herself, and then continued in a lower voice: "It is prejudice, of course, but I do not like him. I positively cannot bear the sight of him."

"I fancy he knows that you do not like him," I remarked.

"Tell me, Miss Carvel, do you know anything of the reason why Madame Patoff became insane? If you do know, you must not tell me what it was, because your father does not wish me to hear it. But I should like to be sure whether you know all about it or not; whether you and I judge her from the same point of view, or whether you are better instructed than I am."

"I know nothing about it," said Hermione, quietly.

She sat gazing into the great fire, one small hand supporting her chin, and the other resting upon the sharp white head of Fang, who never moved from her knee. There was a pause, during which we were both wondering what strange circ.u.mstance could have brought the unhappy woman to her present condition, whether it were that of real or of a.s.sumed insanity.

"I do not know," she repeated, at last. "I wish I did; but I suppose it was something too dreadful to be told. There are such dreadful things in the world, you know."

"Yes, I know there are," I answered, gravely; and in truth I was persuaded that the prime cause must have been extraordinary indeed, since even John Carvel had said that he could not tell me.

"There are such dreadful things," Hermione said again. "Just think how horrible it would be if"---- She stopped short, and blushed crimson in the ruddy firelight.

"What?" I asked. But she did not answer, and I saw that the idea had pained her, whatever it might be. Presently she turned the phrase so as to make it appear natural enough.

"What a horrible thing it would be if we found that poor aunt Annie only let us believe she was mad, because she had done something she was sorry for, and would not own it!"

"Dreadful indeed," I replied. Hermione rose from her deep chair.

"Good-night, Mr. Griggs," she said. "I hope we may all understand everything some day."

"Good-night, Miss Carvel."

"How careful you are of the formalities!" she said, laughing. "How two years change everything! It used to be 'Good-night, Hermy,' so short a time ago!"

"Good-night, Hermy," I said, laughing too, as she took my hand. "If you are old enough to be called Miss Carvel, I am old enough to call you Hermy still."

"Oh, I did not mean that," she said, and went away.

I sat a few minutes by the fire after she had gone, and then, fearing lest I should be disturbed by the professor or John Carvel, I too left the hall, and went to my own room, to think over the events of the day.

I had learned so much that I was confused, and needed rest and leisure to reflect. That morning I had waked with a sensation of unsatisfied curiosity. All I had wanted to discover had been told me before bed-time, and more also; and now I was unpleasantly aware that this very curiosity was redoubled, and that, having been promoted from knowing nothing to knowing something, I felt I had only begun to guess how much there was to be known.

Oh, this interest in other people's business! How grand and beautiful and simple a thing it is to mind one's own affairs, and leave other people to mind what concerns them! And yet I defy the most indifferent man alive to let himself be put in my position, and not to feel curiosity; to be taken into a half confidence of the most intense interest, and not to desire exceedingly to be trusted with the remainder; to be asked to consider and give an opinion upon certain effects, and to be deliberately informed that he may never know the causes which led to the results he sees.

On mature reflection, what had struck me as most remarkable in connection with the whole matter was Hermione's simple, almost childlike guess,--that Madame Patoff was ashamed of something, and was willing to be considered insane, rather than let it be thought she was in possession of her faculties at the time when she did the deed, whatever it might be. That this was a conceivable hypothesis there was no manner of doubt, only I could hardly imagine what action, apart from the poor woman's attempt at suicide, could have been so serious as to persuade her to act insanity for the rest of her life. Surely John Carvel, with his great, kind heart, would not be unforgiving. But John Carvel might not have been concerned in the matter at all. He spoke of knowing the details and being unable to tell them to me, but he never said they concerned any one but Madame Patoff.

Strange that Hermione should not know, either. Whatever the details were, they were not fit for her young ears. It was strange, too, that she should have conceived an antipathy for the professor. He was a man who was generally popular, or who at least had the faculty of making himself acceptable when he chose; but it was perfectly evident that the scientist and the young girl disliked each other. There was more in it than appeared upon the surface. Innocent young girls do not suddenly contract violent prejudices against elderly and inoffensive men who do not weary them or annoy them in some way; still less do men of large intellect and experience take unreasoning and foolish dislikes to young and beautiful maidens. We know little of the hidden sympathies and antipathies of the human heart, but we know enough to say with certainty that in broad cases the average human being will not, without cause, act wholly in contradiction to the dictates of reason and the probabilities of human nature.

I lay awake long that night, and for many nights afterwards, trying to explain to myself these problems, and planning ways and means for discovering whether or not the beautiful old lady down-stairs was in her right mind, or was playing a shameful and wicked trick upon the man who sheltered her. But though other events followed each other with rapidity, it was long before I got at the truth and settled the question. Whether or not I was right in wishing to pursue the secret to its ultimate source and explanation, I leave you to judge. I will only say that, although I was at first impelled by what seems now a wretched and worthless curiosity, I found, as time went on, that there was such a multiplicity of interests at stake, that the complications were so singular and unexpected and the pa.s.sions aroused so masterful and desperate, that, being in the fight, I had no choice but to fight it to the end. So I did my very best in helping those to whom I owed allegiance by all the laws of hospitality and grat.i.tude, and in concentrating my whole strength and intelligence and activity in the discovery of an evil which I suspected from the first to be very great, but of which I was far from realizing the magnitude and extent.

You will forgive my thus speaking of myself, and this apology for my doings at this stage of my story; but I am aware that my motives. .h.i.therto may have appeared contemptible, and I am anxious to have you understand that when I found myself suddenly placed in what I regard as one of the most extraordinary situations of my life, I honestly put my hand out, and strove to become an agent for good in that strange series of events into which my poor curiosity had originally brought me. And having thus explained and expressed myself in concluding what I may regard as the first part of my story, I promise that I will not trouble you again, dear lady, with any unnecessary a.s.severations of my good faith, nor with any useless defense of my actions; conceiving that although I am responsible to you for the telling of this tale, I am answerable to many for the part I played in the circ.u.mstances here related; and that, on the other hand, though no one can find much fault with me for my doings, none but you will have occasion to criticise my mode of telling them.

Henceforth, therefore, and to the end, I will speak of events which happened from an historical point of view, frequently detailing conversations in which I took no part and scenes of which I had not at the time any knowledge, and only introducing myself in the first person when the nature of the story requires it.

XI.