The Statement of Stella Maberly, and An Evil Spirit

by F. Anstey

  But hardly had the impious words left my lips than I was appalled at my blasphemy, and implored that my Creator would pardon me for even momentarily doubting His omnipotence, and show me of His infinite mercy and goodness—even now, little as I deserved it.

  And, while I still knelt, the sun rose and shot a level ray of crimson gold into the room, suffusing Evelyn’s pale, pure face with the hue of life and health, until, as I looked, the illusion was so powerful that I buried my face in the bedclothes lest I might be cheated into hope.

  For I knew then, as I had known all the time, that I was asking the impossible; the age of miracles was past—the dead return to us no more. I must try to bear my load of grief and remorse with patience, until Heaven saw fit to let us meet again, and all would be understood and forgiven.

  But suddenly I became aware of a slight stir beneath the coverlet, a sound like the faintest sigh. I raised my head, hardly daring to hope that my senses had not duped me afresh—and then, with a relief so acute and overpowering that it was almost agonising, and a mental shock that numbed my brain for the moment, I saw Evelyn’s breast heave and her eyelids quiver and her eyes light up with the life that a moment before seemed to have died out of them for ever!

  I caught her slight, unresisting form in my arms and kissed the sweet, wondering face, calling her by the maddest, fondest names, laughing and weeping, beside myself with the unspeakable joy of finding her warm and living, who but just now had lain there dead and cold.

  She submitted to my caresses without returning them, seeming but half awake, a strange wonder still lingered in her eyes, as though they had looked upon the secrets of the life beyond and could not forget them all at once; her very smile was charged with mystery.

  ‘Where am I?’ she said dreamily. ‘How do I come to be here, and who are you?’

  ‘Evelyn!’ I cried; ‘don’t you know me? I am Stella—Stella Maberly. Say that you are beginning to remember—that you forgive me for all I said and did last night!’

  ‘Last night!’ she repeated vaguely. ‘Tell me, Stella, for I seem to have forgotten.’

  Brokenly and incoherently I poured out my confession, keeping back nothing, exaggerating rather than extenuating all my harsh words and evil thoughts. I told her of the chloral; I accused myself of being her murderess in all but deed. I described how I had read her letter, and come in—to find her lying there, to all appearances dead.

  She covered her eyes with her slender hands for a minute or so, as if to reflect and remember, and then she looked at me, still with that questioning scrutiny. ‘I do begin to recollect now,’ she said slowly. ‘What a fright you must have had, Stella. But what has become of the chloral? Oh, I see—you had presence of mind enough to get rid of it as soon as you saw what had happened. That was prudent!’

  The phial was certainly gone, as I noticed now for the first time.

  ‘Evelyn!’ I cried, sorely hurt. ‘You can’t really suppose I could think of any danger to myself then! As if anything could matter but that I had lost you. I could only pray—and God heard me. He has let you come back to me, oh, my dear! my dear! He has let you come back!’

  She let her hands lie passively in mine, and lay smiling, with a soft gleam under her half-shut eyelids.

  ‘He has let me come back,’ she said. ‘How good of Him! How grateful you must be—and what much greater care you will take of me for the future, will you not, Stella?’

  There was something in her tone which was not exactly flippancy or mockery, but rather a touch of delicate irony, which, however playful and affectionate, jarred on me at such a moment. Irony of any sort was so unlike Evelyn. But how could I give such a trifle more than a passing thought in the rapture I felt at having her back alive and well? I could only again protest my shame for having misjudged her, my willingness to be her devoted friend, her servant, her slave, anything she would permit me to be—in future, and beg her for some assurance that I had not quite lost her confidence and affection, in spite of all my unworthiness.

  ‘You must give me time, Stella,’ she said languidly. ‘I don’t understand it all yet—there is a great deal that I have to get accustomed to; everything seems strange, even this place, as if I had been away a long long time. I want to be alone and think.’

  I could readily understand that the effect of the opiate had not quite worn off as yet, and that she must have been shocked, and bewildered, too, by my overstrung and hysterical confessions, so I left her to recover full possession of her faculties in peace.

  It was still early, but I was too excited and happy to sleep. I had my bath, dressed and went down to the garden, to taste the full sweetness of the contrast between my present bliss and my condition when I last paced those paths in miserable uncertainty and dread a few short hours ago.

  Standing there in the fresh morning air, watching the first spiral of smoke ascend from the old chimney-stacks into the golden-blue sky, and hearing the cheerful sounds of awakening life from the offices and stables, it was impossible to retain the idea of any supernatural element in Evelyn’s recovery of animation. I could see now that no miracle had happened; the drug had thrown her into a sleep so profound that it had the appearance of death, and my conscious-stricken imagination had led me to believe the worst. But, whether I had cause or not for gratitude, I did feel deeply thankful to Heaven when I thought of the anguish and desolation which this day had seemed so certain to bring, and which I had been spared.

  And soon even this was forgotten in the recollection of what Evelyn had told me of Hugh Dallas. I should see him so soon—this very afternoon, perhaps, and she would have reassured him, he would understand at least that there was hope for him if he still cared to persevere. And if he did care—as I knew he would—I should act the woman’s delicious comedy of seeming gradually to soften towards the man she secretly adores, here, in this dear old garden-world, through the golden hours that were coming to me.

  A new radiance was on the familiar landscape. Everything I saw around me had become strange and wondrous and beautiful; the ripple of light and shade over the distant cornfields, the long violet shadows cast by the trees on the dew-silvered pasture land, the colour and fragrance of the flowers, the flitting of yellow butterflies about the lawn, every common thing, in short, filled me with a keenness of delight that was like an additional sense.

  This state of rapturous ecstasy made me lose all count of time, and I was startled to find that I had been roaming about for hours, and that the gong was sounding for breakfast.

  Neither Evelyn nor her aunt had come down as yet, and, as I waited for them, I wondered how I had never before appreciated the charm of the long, low-ceilinged morning-room with its panelled walls and stately old furniture; the sun had not as yet struck further in than the faded crimson of the window cushions, though it shone in full glare upon the conservatory at the further end, where the masses of bloom and transparent green foliage made a vivid contrast to the cool, subdued light of the room itself. The very breakfast-table, with its dainty china and gleaming silver, heightened the luxurious sense of well-being and the delightfulness of mere existence, which made the world seem so good to live in that morning.

  And yet, when Evelyn appeared, as she did presently with Mrs Maitland, I felt, almost from the moment she entered, as if my exhilaration had received an unaccountable check.

  Why, I could not understand; she was looking brighter and fresher than she had done for weeks. She greeted me with a gaiety and good-humour that seemed to ignore all that had happened—and yet I could not resist an uneasy fancy that in some way her attitude to me had changed, that my impulsive confession had killed for ever the guileless trust and affection she had given me before.

  After we had sat down to breakfast and the butler had left the room, she said: ‘Aunt Lucy has been paying me the most extravagant compliments on my appearance, Stella, I hope you see an improvement in me too?’

  ‘You are looking wonderfully well, dear Evelyn,’ I said. ‘Better t
han I could have hoped.’

  ‘Hoped—when?’ she said; ‘last night—or early this morning?’

  I could not answer. The tone in which she asked the question, rather than the question itself, sent a chill to my heart. I could not have believed that she would treat so lightly what had passed between us.

  ‘Stella came into my room this morning, Aunt Lucy, and found me so sound asleep that she fancied I was never going to wake again,’ she explained.

  ‘Indeed, my dear, you were only half awake when I came in to see you just now,’ said her aunt, ‘for you didn’t know me in the least. I assure you, Miss Maberly, I positively had to tell her who I was.’

  ‘Wasn’t it stupid of me?’ said Evelyn. ‘And I frightened poor Stella so that she said the wildest things. She was quite persuaded that she had killed me—why, is more than I quite understand, even now. What made you imagine yourself so guilty, Stella?’

  I looked at her appealingly; her eyes met mine with a malicious challenge in them which I knew I could not avoid by silence. ‘I told you,’ I said, in a voice I could not steady,—‘I told you that I thought the chloral—’ I could not finish the sentence, the recollection of all the agony of those minutes overpowered me.

  ‘Ah, the chloral—I remember now,’ she said. ‘Aunt Lucy tells me she took it away last night, and it will be a great relief to me, Stella, if you will let it remain in her keeping. It is such a dangerous drug that I do trust you will have nothing to do with it in future—one so easily makes mistakes.’

  I could not trust myself to reply. I knew too well that all these speeches, though worded so as to convey nothing of their real significance to any ear but mine, were so many deliberate taunts. Why did she take this cat-like pleasure in torturing me—she, who had never before uttered a cruel word? Any other sign of estrangement I could have understood—but this was too utterly foreign to all my conceptions of her.

  Mrs Maitland saw, I think, that the subject was distressing to me, and with her usual good-nature, turned it off by remarking how delighted she was to see that Evelyn had at last recovered her appetite. I had already noticed that Evelyn was eating more heartily than I ever remembered to have seen her, and with a daintily sensuous enjoyment, which somehow made her seem more charming.

  ‘I’m ravenous this morning,’ she said. ‘I feel as if I had eaten nothing for ages. You must try not to feel horrified, both of you.’

  ‘My dear,’ replied her aunt, ‘I’m sure we are both only too pleased to see such a change. I really think this country life has begun to do you good at last. You have certainly come down quite a different creature this morning.’

  ‘A different creature,’ she repeated with a gay little laugh; ‘is that your opinion of me, Stella? You are bound to put up with me at all events, are you not, whatever I am.’

  When breakfast was over, and she and I were in the room alone together, she wound her arm round me and drew me up to an old-fashioned mirror in a tortoiseshell frame that hung on one of the walls. ‘Come and help me to make the acquaintance of my new self,’ she said. ‘I want to know whether you approve of me. Really, I think you ought to feel satisfied, I do.’

  As I stood there and saw our two faces reflected side by side, I thought that surely Evelyn had never looked so lovely before, her cheeks had never worn so vivid a rose, her eyes had never shone with that starry radiance, her smile had never been so dazzling—and yet, even while I felt her arm pressing me closer to her, I could not prevent a shiver of apprehension, a growing distrust and dread which I knew to be unreasonable.

  She noticed the pallor and trouble in my face, the uncontrollable shrinking under her embrace.

  ‘Why, Stella,’ she said, in a tone between amusement and concern, ‘you are trembling! Is it possible that you can be afraid—of me?’

  ‘I—I don’t know,’ I faltered. ‘I don’t think I am afraid—I don’t want to be!’

  ‘Up there—in that room—you promised to love me more devotedly than ever,’ she said softly. ‘Is this how you begin?’

  ‘You won’t let me,’ I cried. ‘You have not forgiven me. If you had, you would not delight in reminding me of what you know must give me pain, of what I would willingly forget. You don’t look at me as if you loved me—and it frightens me, Evelyn. There is a change in you, and I see it!’

  She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Naturally, there is a change—after what has happened,’ she said. ‘But, think—would you rather that your beloved Evelyn was lying, white and cold and silent for ever, upstairs at this moment than have me here by your side? What is done cannot be undone—and it will be wiser of you to accept me as I am.’

  ‘You can’t believe that I am anything but unspeakably glad and grateful that you are spared to me—whether you love me or not!’ I cried passionately. ‘Say, at least—at least—that you don’t doubt that!’

  ‘I do not doubt it,’ she replied. ‘You have too much reason to be both, my dear. Only, I expect to be given proofs of your sincerity—that is all. There, don’t distress yourself any more about it. I have no ill-feeling whatever towards you—why should I?’

  She kissed me with a kind of careless, half-contemptuous clemency as she spoke, but I could not feel consoled or reassured. It was too plain that the sudden discovery of my baseness had, for the time, shaken her faith in friendship, and driven her into cynical disbelief in any disinterested affection. I had tried her too far, and done harm that it would be long before I could entirely repair, if it ever could be entirely repaired.

  It was my punishment, and I must accept it, since I had deserved a far heavier penalty even than the forfeiture of Evelyn’s confidence. I might have lost her.

  A little later we were in the garden when Mrs Maitland came out. ‘I only wanted to know, dear Evelyn,’ she said, ‘before I saw the cook, whether it is at all likely that Mr Dallas may dine with us this evening; that is, if he is coming over this afternoon?’ There was an irrepressible curiosity in her eyes as she looked at Evelyn, which showed that her question was not wholly prompted by household considerations.

  ‘Mr Dallas?’ said Evelyn, with apparent unconcern. ‘Is he coming over? Very likely he may. You had better ask Stella, had you not?’

  ‘Nonsense, my dear!’ said Mrs Maitland, with some irritation, ‘it is a question for you and nobody else, and really I think it is time you took me a little more into your confidence, and I must have a little private talk with you on the subject. I am sure Miss Maberly will excuse us.’

  She drew Evelyn away, and I heard no more, but I could see them walking up and down the paths in the fruit garden, Evelyn bending her graceful head in demure attention, or occasionally stopping to strip off a bunch of currants as she passed, and Mrs Maitland talking earnestly and emphatically.

  Presently Evelyn returned alone, and threw herself into a chair by my side.

  ‘Have you told her?’ I asked impulsively.

  ‘I think my invaluable Aunt Lucy monopolised the conversation,’ said Evelyn, smiling, more to herself than to me. ‘She was most informing. Have I told her what, Stella?’

  ‘Ah, you know!’ I exclaimed. ‘And—and don’t you see that Mrs Maitland believes that Hugh—Mr Dallas, is in love with you?’

  ‘She made no secret of it,’ said Evelyn. ‘And if he is, my dear, what then?’

  ‘Can you ask? After the letter you wrote me—only last night? You cannot have forgotten!’

  ‘Absolutely—my mind is a perfect blank on the subject. I gather from you that you and I quarrelled last night rather seriously. Was it about this Hugh Dallas, by any chance?’

  ‘You only pretend to be ignorant to punish me. You must remember!’

  ‘All that happened before this morning, my dear Stella. I can remember nothing until I am reminded. Show me this letter, and no doubt it will enlighten me.’

  It was not altogether surprising that the draught should have left a cloud upon her memory. I went up to my room and got the letter, which I gave her without a
word, and knelt by her chair as she turned the pages and read to the end, with slightly raised brows and eyes, in whose brightness there was no touch of soften­ing.

  ‘Rather a sentimental effusion!’ she said at length. ‘Am I expected to be responsible for it?’

  ‘For God’s sake don’t sneer at it!’ I exclaimed, on the verge of a flood of tears. ‘It was written from the noblest and most generous impulse any woman could feel. I know it is all different now. I have lost your respect—you despise me—but, oh, Evelyn, don’t abandon me altogether—don’t take this away from me too! You promised—you promised. You know I cannot speak to him myself. And if you do not, he will go—and I shall die!’

  ‘Need we be quite so tragic over this affair?’ she said. ‘I have never said that I was unwilling to carry out the promise in this letter. I have no animosity against you. On the contrary, I feel considerably indebted to you, as you may understand. And if this lover of yours is really so faint-hearted or so stupid as to need any encouragement from me, he shall have it. What do you wish me to tell him?’

  ‘Tell him what you will,’ I said, ‘I am below pride now. Tell him that I love him with all my heart, as he loves me . . . Evelyn,’ I broke off, as a sudden, terrible doubt struck me, ‘you—you did not write this to mock me? You are sure he does love me? Is it true that he told you so with his own lips?’

  ‘As true as that I wrote this letter,’ she said, ‘which, by the way, is not worth preserving,’ and she tore it up as she spoke. ‘Leave it to me, my dear. If there is anything I can do to bring about a better understanding between you and this Hugh Dallas it shall be done.’

  I could not look into her candid eyes and doubt her any longer, I wondered how I could ever have felt even a passing distrust. I had disappointed her, shaken her faith in me, but hers was not the nature to allow that to affect her conduct. My future was as safe in her gentle hands as before.