The Legacy of Cain

And here am I writing of it! What I had determined not to do, is what I have done. Am I losing my senses already? The very names that I was most anxious to keep out of my memory stare me in the face in the lines that I have just written. Philip again! Helena again!

.......

Another day, and something new that must and will be remembered, shrink from it as I may. This afternoon, I met Helena on the stairs.

She stopped, and eyed me with a wicked smile; she held out her hand. "We are likely to meet often, while we are in the same house," she said; "hadn't we better consult appearances, and pretend to be as fond of each other as ever?"

I took no notice of her hand; I took no notice of her shameless proposal. She tried again: "After all, it isn't my fault if Philip likes me better than he likes you. Don't you see that?" I still refused to speak to her. She still persisted. "How black you look, Eunice! Are you sorry you didn't kill me, when you had your hands on my throat?"

I said: "Yes."

She laughed, and left me. I was obliged to sit down on the stair—I trembled so. My own reply frightened me. I tried to find out why I had said Yes. I don't remember being conscious of meaning anything. It was as if somebody else had said Yes—not I. Perhaps I was provoked, and the word escaped me before I could stop it. Could I have stopped it? I don't know.

.......

Another sleepless night.

Did I pass the miserable hours in writing letters to Philip and then tearing them up? Or did I only fancy that I wrote to him? I have just looked at the fireplace. The torn paper in it tells me that I did write. Why did I destroy my letters? I might have sent one of them to Philip. After what has happened? Oh, no! no!

Having been many days away from the Girls' Scripture Class, it seemed to be possible that going back to the school and the teaching might help me to escape from myself.

Nothing succeeds with me. I found it impossible to instruct the girls as usual; their stupidity soon reached the limit of my patience—suffocated me with rage. One of them, a poor, fat, feeble creature, began to cry when I scolded her. I looked with envy at the tears rolling over her big round cheeks. If I could only cry, I might perhaps bear my hard fate with submission.

I walked toward home by a roundabout way; feeling as if want of sleep was killing me by inches.

In the High Street, I saw Helena; she was posting a letter, and was not aware that I was near her. Leaving the post-office, she crossed the street, and narrowly escaped being run over. Suppose the threatened accident had really taken place—how should I have felt, if it had ended fatally? What a fool I am to be putting questions to myself about things that have not happened!

The walking tired me; I went straight home.

Before I could ring the bell, the house door opened, and the doctor came out. He stopped to speak to me. While I had been away (he said), something had happened at home (he neither knew nor wished to know what) which had thrown my father into a state of violent agitation. The doctor had administered composing medicine. "My patient is asleep now," he told me; "but remember what I said to you the last time we met; a longer rest than any doctor's prescription can give him is what he wants. You are not looking well yourself, my dear. What is the matter?"

I told him of my wretched restless nights; and asked if I might take some of the composing medicine which he had given to my father. He forbade me to touch a drop of it. "What is physic for your father, you foolish child, is not physic for a young creature like you," he said. "Count a thousand, if you can't sleep to-night, or turn your pillow. I wish you pleasant dreams." He went away, amused at his own humor.

I found Selina waiting to speak with me, on the subject of poor papa.

She had been startled on hearing his voice, loud in anger. In the fear that something serious had happened, she left her room to make inquiries, and saw Helena on the landing of the flight of stairs beneath, leaving the study. After waiting till my sister was out of the way, Selina ventured to present herself at the study door, and to ask if she could be of any use. My father, walking excitedly up and down the room, declared that both his daughters had behaved infamously, and that he would not suffer them to speak to him again until they had come to their senses, on the subject of Mr. Dunboyne. He would enter into no further explanation; and he had ordered, rather than requested, Selina to leave him. Having obeyed, she tried next to find me, and had just looked into the dining-room to see if I was there, when she was frightened by the sound of a fall in the room above—that is to say, in the study. Running upstairs again, she had found him insensible on the floor and had sent for the doctor.

"And mind this," Selina continued, "the person who has done the mischief is the person whom I saw leaving the study. What your unnatural sister said to provoke her father—"